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The  edition  is  limited  to  142  copies. 
One  hundred  and  twenty-two  copies 
on  hand-made  paper,  the  plates  on 
Imperial  Japan  paper;  ten  copies  on 
hand-made  paper,  the  plates  on  India 
paper,  mounted;  and  ten  copies  on 
Imperial  Japan  paper,  with  additional 
proof  of  each  plate  before  letter. 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW 
YORK  AND  OTHER 
PAPERS 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELL- 
ERS OF  NEW  YORK 

AND  OTHER  PAPERS 

BY 

WILLIAM  LORING  ANDREWS 


NEW  YORK  :  ANNO  DOMINI  ONE  THOU- 
SAND EIGHT  HUNDRED  AND  NINETY-FIVE 


^3 


COPYRIGHT,  1895, 
BY  WILLIAM  LORING  ANDREWS 


PREFATORY  NOTE 


CT*HIS  brief  account  of  the  old  booksellers 
J-  of  New  York  includes — with  very 
few  exceptions — only  those  members  of 
the  Fraternity  who  came  within  the  cog- 
nisance of  the  writer,  and  who  now  have 
passed  off  the  stage.  Short  as  is  the  story, 
it  covers  a  period  during  which  the  old 
book  trade  had  its  rise  and  became  a  per- 
manently established  business  in  this  city. 

These  papers  were  prepared  for  and  have 
appeared  in  part,  in  the  pages  of  "  The 
Bookman. ' '  They  are  now  presented  in  book 
form,  with  embellishments  consisting  of 
head  and  tail  pieces,  initial  letters  and 
three  full-page  copper  plate  engravings  by 
Mr.  E.  Davis  French. 


LIST  OF  PLATES 


I  AN  EAST  VIEW  OF  TRINITY  CHURCH, 

NEW  YORK.     COPIED  FROM  THE  ORIGINAL,  IN  THE  NEW 
YORK  MAGAZINE,  I79O.      ENGRAVED  BY  E.  D.  FRENCH. 

FRONTISPIECE 

II  NASSAU  STREET,  NEW  YORK, 

IN  1895.     ENGRAVED  BY  E.  D.  FRENCH.     FACING  PAGE  3 

III     GOVERNMENT  HOUSE,  NEW  YORK, 

COPIED  FROM  THE  ORIGINAL,  IN  THE  NEW  YORK  MAGA- 
ZINE,  I795.      ENGRAVED  BY  E.  D.  FRENCH. 

FACING  PAGE  S3 


IV 


TITLE  PAGE  OF  NATHANIEL  AMES'S  AL- 
MANAC FOR  1760. 

FACSIMILE  REPRODUCTION.  FACING  PAGE 


"  There's  nothing  hath  enduring  youth 
Eternal  newness,  strength  unfailing. 

Except  old  books,  old  friends,  old  truth 
That's  ever  battling — still  prevailing." 


I 

WILLIAM  GOWANS 

N  the  opening  chapter  of  the 
Notes  to  Peabody's  "  Views  in 
New  York  and  Its  Environs," 
published  in  183 1,  Theodore 
B.  Fay,  co-editor  of  the  New 
York  Mirror  thus  describes 
the  city  of  his  indwelling,  and  depicts  in 
these  grandiloquent  terms  the  enviable 
estate  of  his  fellow  townsmen  and  the 
proud  future  which  unveiled  its  glittering 
vista  before  them  : 

"  A  vast  city,  with  its  bristling  forest  of 
masts  and  spires,  sending  forth  the  hum  of 
more  than  200,000  inhabitants.  Freedom, 


3 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

peace  and  plenty  are  in  their  dwellings,  and 
their  destiny  is  as  unclouded  as  the  glorious 
vault  of  Heaven,  which  stretches  with  all 
its  stars  above  their  heads." 

The  Gothamite  of  the  first  half  of  the 
19th  century  possessed  implicit  faith  as  well 
as  unbounded  pride  in  his  fair  and  thriving 
city.  A  dabbler  in  statistics  of  this  period, 
who  applied  to  his  computations  the  plain 
and  simple  "rule  of  three,  "developed  the 
astounding  fact  that  by  the  year  1900  New 
York  city  should  contain  a  population  of  over 
5,000,000  souls.  To  be  precise,  5,257,193. 
He  admits  that  wars,  pestilences  and  politi- 
cal convulsions,  such  as  from  time  to  time 
befall  all  communities,  might  possibly  inter- 
fere with  this  steady  arithmetical  progres- 
sion ;  nevertheless,  he  is  confident  that  by 
the  expiration  of  the  time  specified  the  pop- 
ulation of  New  York  will  exceed  that  of  any 
other  city  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  Pekin 
alone  excepted.  London  would  be  left  far 
in  the  background.  Four  years  after  the 
date  of  this  prediction  (December  16th,  1835), 
the  "Great  Fire"  swept  with  its  besom  of 
destruction  over  the  larger  portion  of  the 
business  section  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
and  left  it  a  mass  of  smoking  ruins.  Six 
hundred  and  seventy-four  houses,  many  of 


4 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

them  occupied  by  the  largest  shipping  and 
wholesale  dry-goods  merchants,  were,  with 
most  of  their  contents,  burned  to  the  ground. 
Our  prophet  had  not  reckoned  with  the 
demon  of  fire  ;  still,  this  widespread  dis- 
aster stayed  only  momentarily  the  onward 
march  of  the  metropolis.  Phcenix-like,  it 
rose  from  its  ashes,  and,  while  it  has  not 
attained  the  full  measure  of  greatness  ci- 
phered out  for  it  with  such  facility  by  the 
optimist  whom  we  have  quoted,  still  we 
venture  to  claim  that  the  chief  city  of  the 
Western  world  has  fairly  fulfilled  the  rosy 
promise  of  its  youth. 

In  the  year  1828  there  came  to  this  busy, 
bustling,  aspiring  town,  from  the  wilds  of 
Indiana,  one  William  Gowans,  in  search  of 
fame  and  fortune.  He  was  a  youth  of 
twenty-five,  a  Scotchman  by  birth,  and 
whilom  farmer  and  flat-boatman  on  the 
Mississippi.  His  experience  when  "a youth 
navigating  the  wild  Ohio  and  the  wilder 
Mississippi "  may  be  given  best  by  the  pen 
picture  drawn  by  himself.  "  Then  there  were 
no  byways  for  boats  to  escape  the  rugged 
falls  of  the  Ohio  as  there  now  are.  All 

Note. — The  family  emigrated  to  America  from  Lesmahagon, 
Scotland,  in  1821.  They  settled  for  a  while  in  Philadelphia,  and  then 
moved  to  Fredonia,  Crawford  County,  Indiana,  traveling  by  wagon 
via  Pittsburgh. 

5 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

had  to  pass  through  the  roaring  straits  of 
Scylla  and  Charybdis.  We  had,  therefore,  to 
plunge  over  unhesitatingly.  Swifter  than  an 
arrow  from  an  Indian's  bow,  or  thought, 
or  lightning,  or  the  soul's  departure  from 
the  body.  Not  a  house  stood  upon  the 
point  of  land  formed  by  the  junction  of  the 
Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers,  nor  was  the  land 
even  under  cultivation,  but  in  its  primitive, 
wild,  dreary  solitude.  I  understand  that  it 
is  now  the  site  of  a  large,  busy  city  (Cairo). 
Seventy  miles  below,  on  the  west  bank  of 
the  Mississippi,  stood  the  deserted  village  of 
New  Madrid,  consisting  of  a  few  log  houses, 
apparently  empty,  and  the  surrounding 
forest  all  dead,  caused,  as  I  learned,  by  an 
earthquake  a  few  years  ago.  The  land  at 
this  place  sunk  ten  feet  from  the  effects  of 
the  shock,  and  no  doubt  the  concussion 
caused  these  monarchs  of  the  forest  to 
wither  and  die.  Fifty  miles  still  further 
down  stood  the  now  city  of  Memphis.  The 
captain  of  our  sluggish-moving  boat  landed 
at  this  place.  I  accompanied  him  up  the 
bank,  the  river  being  low  at  the  time,  for 
the  purpose  of  buying  a  supply  of  whis- 
key. The  town,  I  remember,  consisted  of 
log  houses  inhabited  by  a  very  poor  class  of 
people.    After  falling  down  below  this  town 

6 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

about  50  miles,  we  met  with  no  settlement 
until  we  reached  the  vicinity  of  Walnut 
Hill,  now  Vicksburgh,  the  distance  being 
about  600  miles.  The  only  music  in  the 
daytime  which  regaled  our  senses  was  the 
puffing  and  distressed  moaning  of  the 
high-pressured  steamers  which  occasionally 
passed  up  and  down  the  river,  as  the  case 
might  be,  and  as  an  afterpiece,  the  wild 
screaming  of  the  numerous  flocks  of  paro- 
quets which  travel  along  the  bank  of  the 
river  after  descending  to  a  certain  latitude; 
and  in  the  night,  the  wolfs  wild  howl,  not 
on  Onolaska's  shore,  but  the  banks  of  the 
gloomy  and  solitary  Mississippi.  The  only 
human  beings  we  fell  in  with  during  this 
descent,  which  took  six  weeks,  were  cer- 
tain roving,  half-civilized  whites  who  had 
pitched  their  tents  at  certain  points  for  the 
purpose  of  cutting  and  preparing  fuel  for  the 
steamboats  passing  up  and  down,  and  num- 
bers of  the  native  sons  of  the  forest,  who 
could  be  seen  every  now  and  then  paddling 
their  light  canoes  close  in  to  the  shore  if 
ascending,  and  on  the  contrary,  in  the  cen- 
tre of  the  river  if  downward  bound.  At 
first  these  savage-faced,  painted  men  some- 
what alarmed  me;  but  they  frequently  paid 
us  a  visit  by  coming  alongside  and  on  board 
7 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

of  our  own  lazy  craft.  After  becoming 
somewhat  familiar  with  these  grim,  black- 
haired,  half-naked  fellow-beings,  I  began 
rather  to  like  them,  and  wished  for  their 
frequent  return  to  break  up  our  monotony. 
They  left  the  impression  upon  me  that  they 
were  both  generous  and  confiding.  A  party 
came  on  board  one  day;  one  of  them  could 
speak  a  little  English.  He  informed  us  that 
one  of  their  number  was  condemned  to 
death  for  having  murdered  one  of  the  tribe 
when  intoxicated.  We  urged  him  to  make 
his  escape,  as  he  appeared  to  be  at  liberty. 
We  even  offered  to  take  him  with  us  in  our 
boat,  but  they  all  declared,  as  we  could 
understand  them,  that  that  would  be  of  no 
use,  for  in  the  event  of  his  non-appearance 
for  execution  on  the  day  appointed,  his  wife 
or  one  of  his  children  would  have  to  suffer 
in  his  stead.  The  three  great  rivers  which 
discharge  their  heavy  contents  into  the 
Mississippi — the  Arkansas,  the  Yazoo  and 
the  Red  rivers — at  those  points  where  they 
lost  themselves  in  the  great  father  of  waters, 
were  all  solitary,  heavy-timbered  wilder- 
nesses. Not  a  human  being  appeared  to 
have  disturbed  their  native  wild  grandeur. 
Now  I  understand  that  at  each  and  all  of 
these  points  are  busy  towns,  and  likely  to 

8 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

become  large  cities.  At  this  time,  accord- 
ing to  his  biographers,  Abraham  Lincoln 
must  have  been  a  fellow-boatman  with  me 
on  these  rivers,  although  I  never  saw  him 
to  my  knowledge." 

For  a  twelvemonth  after  his  arrival  in 
New  York  Mr.  Gowans  was  engaged  in  a 
variety  of  occupations — namely,  that  of  gar- 
dener, stevedore,  stone-cutter,  news-vender 
and  "super"  in  the  old  Bowery  Theatre. 
Evidently  he  was  prepared  to  turn  his  hand 
to  any  honest  means  of  livelihood.  But  it 
was  not  long  before  he  entered  on  his  vo- 
cation, for  in  Longworth's  Directory  of  New 
York  City,  1829  to  1830,  we  find  the  name 
of  William  Gowan,  bookstall,  119  Chat- 
ham Street,  house  750  Greenwich  Street, 
so  by  that  time  he  was  established,  in 
an  humble  way,  in  the  business  which  was 
to  be  his  lifelong  pursuit.  Trade  in  sec- 
ond-hand books,  doubtless,  was  coy  and 
hard  to  win,  and  at  the  outset  of  his 
career  he  was  obliged  to  seek  a  market  for 
his  merchandise  by  carrying  it  in  a  basket 
to  the  doors  of  his  customers.  In  one  of 
his  rounds  he  chanced  upon  a  benevolent 
Quaker,  named  Blatchley,  who,  appar- 
ently unsolicited,  loaned  him  the  sum  of 
twenty-five   dollars.     When   some  time 


9 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

later  the  young  man  came  to  return  the 
money,  the  considerate  old  gentleman  sug- 
gested that  he  might  have  further  need  of 
this  special  capital,  and  that  he  had  better 
keep  it  a  little  longer.  His  benefactor  lived 
to  see  him  established  in,  and  paid  him 
frequent  visits  at,  his  Nassau  Street  store. 

Mr.  Gowans  informs  us  that  it  was  largely 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  father  of 
Thomas  Cole,  the  artist,  who  was  a  book- 
seller in  a  small  way,  that  he  himself 
adopted  the  profession.  He  it  was  who 
initiated  him  into  the  secrets  of  the  second- 
hand book  trade,  disclosing  his  manner  and 
mode  of  purchase,  and  the  profit  he  made 
upon  his  literary  wares. 

The  bookstall  at  1 19  Chatham  Street  was 
simply  a  row  of  shelves,  protected  at  night 
and  in  the  owner's  absence  during  the  day 
on  his  book-selling  peregrinations  with 
wooden  shutters,  an  iron  bar  and  a  pad- 
lock. It  was  shortly  succeeded  by  a  store 
at  121  Chatham  Street,  corner  of  Pearl.  In 
1830  he  occupied  the  "  Arcade,"  between 
John  Street  and  Maiden  Lane. 

His  business  ventures  must  have  been 
attended  with  a  moderate  degree  of  suc- 
cess, for  in  1840-41  Mr.  Gowans  made  a 
visit  to  Europe,  probably  not  so  much  on 
10 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

pleasure  bent  as  with  an  eye  to  business. 
He  did  not  find  London  as  attractive  as  has 
Mr.  Elias  Dexter,  the  old  and  well-known 
print  and  picture  dealer,  who  never  has  re- 
turned to  these  shores  since  he  left  them, 
twenty  years  or  more  ago,  on  a  flying  visit 
to  the  British  metropolis.  In  a  letter  from 
London  during  his  sojourn  there  Mr.  Gow- 
ans  writes:  "All  my  wanderings  and  all 
that  I  have  seen  since  I  left  New  York  have 
had  a  tendency  to  raise  America  and  its  in- 
stitutions in  my  estimation.  I  will  feel 
happier  in  America,  should  I  ever  be  so  for- 
tunate as  to  return,  than  ever  I  have  been 
heretofore.  America  is  the  country  for  a 
man  making  his  way  in  the  world.  In  this 
country,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  if  you  happen 
to  be  born  among  the  mud  you  must  re- 
main there." 

On  his  return  Mr.  Gowans  devoted  his 
attention  for  a  time  to  the  book  auction 
business,  at  a  place  called  the  Long  Room, 
at  169  Broadway,  but  soon  resumed  his 
second-hand  book  trade,  for  in  1842  he 
was  established  at  204  Broadway,  opposite 
St.  Paul's  Chapel,  up-stairs.  His  subse- 
quent locations,  as  given  on  the  covers  of 
his  catalogues,  are  as  follows: 

1844 — 63  Liberty  Street,  up-stairs. 
11 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

1848—178  Fulton  Street,  opposite  St. 
Paul's  Churchyard. 

1856—81  to  85  Centre  Street  (Caxton 
Building). 

1863 — 115  Nassau  Street. 

He  seems  to  have  enjoyed  the  proximity 
of  the  quiet  graveyard  of  St.  Paul's  Chapel. 
Perhaps  he  found  it  conducive  to  a  quiet 
and  reflective  turn  of  mind;  or  was  it,  on 
the  contrary,  the  noisy  attractions  of  Scud- 
der's  American  Museum  that  allured  him  ? 
This  popular  place  of  amusement  stood 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  his  premises,  on 
the  site  of  the  old  Herald  Building.  It 
contained  specimens  of  natural  history  and 
cosmoramic  views,  to  which  the  charms  of 
music  and  sundry  "  extraneous  exhibitions  " 
were  added  to  give  variety  to  the  enter- 
tainment. The  dulcet  strains  of  the  brass 
band  stationed  upon  the  balcony  in  front 
of  this  building — but  hidden  behind  the  flar- 
ing posters  which  covered  its  front — on 
pleasant  afternoons,  must  have  penetrated 
to  the  inner  recesses  of  Mr.  Gowans's  stores 
on  Fulton  and  Nassau  Streets.  These  "al 
fresco"  instrumentalists  were  fair-weather 
performers  only,  for  Fitz-Greene  Halleck 
tells  us,  in  his  poem  of  "Fanny,"  that 
"music  ceases  when  it  rains  in  Scudder's 


12 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


balcony."  Afterward,  as  Barnum's  Museum, 
this  building  became  the  home  of  the 
Mermaid,  the  Woolly  Horse  and  the  Per- 
petual Motion,  and  the  same  melodious 
method  of  attracting  the  attention  of  the 
passer-by  was  successfully  practiced. 

Mr.  Gowans's  store  at  115  Nassau  Street 
extended  through  to  Theatre  Alley,  a  dis- 
tance of  over  100  feet.  He  occupied  the 
store  floor,  basement  and  sub-cellar,  which 
in  time  became  crowded  with  books  and 
pamphlets  from  floor  to  ceiling.  His  stock 
grew  and  never  diminished.  Books  lay 
everywhere  in  seemingly  dire  confusion, 
piled  upon  tables  and  on  the  floor,  like 
Pelion  upon  Ossian,  until  they  finally  top- 
pled over,  and  the  few  narrow  alleys  which 
had  originally  been  left  between  the  rows 
became  well-nigh  impassable.  There  was 
no  artificial  light  in  the  cellar,  and  the  book- 
hunter  must  fain  grope  his  way — if  permit- 
ted— through  the  bewildering  maze  by  the 
light  of  a  small  tin  sperm-oil  lamp.  The 
freedom  of  Mr.  Gowans's  bookstore  was 
not  presented  to  every  passer-by. 

There  was  a  certain  attempt  at  arrange- 
ment and  classification,  but  the  owner  of 
this  vast  store  of  printed  matter  could  have 
had  but  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  what  it 

13 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

contained;  although  I  fancy  that  few  of  the 
real  book  rarietis  that  came  into  his  pos- 
session were  overlooked,  and  I  am  quite 
sure  they  were  seldom  undervalued  by  him. 
His  prices,  when  once  fixed,  were  as  unal- 
terable as  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Per- 
sians. They  were  marked  in  plain  figures 
in  the  front  of  the  book,  and  the  cost  price 
in  cipher  at  the  bottom  of  the  twenty-fifth 
page. 

I  am  told  by  Mr.  E.  W.  Nash  (Mr.  Gow- 
ans's  clerk  for  twenty  years),  that  at  the 
time  of  his  employer's  death  the  stock  was 
estimated  at  300,000  bound  volumes,  be- 
sides pamphlets  innumerable.  Eight  tons 
weight  of  these  were  sold  by  his  executors 
at  four  and  one-quarter  cents  per  pound. 
A  few  years  earlier  he  could  have  realized 
ten  cents  per  pound  (including  covers),  and 
could  he  have  smuggled  them  into  the 
Southern  Confederacy  during  the  war  he 
would  have  reaped  a  fortune. 

Although  a  large  proportion  of  this  mass 
of  books  and  pamphlets  was  of  small  inter- 
est or  value  to  the  bibliophile,  still  one  pos- 
sessed of  sufficient  energy  and  persever- 
ance, and  with  abundant  leisure  to  delve 
into  these  semi-subterranean  stores,  occa- 
sionally might  return  with  a  handful  of 

14 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

treasure-trove.  In  a  letter  to  the  Journal 
of  Commerce,  dated  January  15th,  1886, 
Dr.  William  C.  Prime  records  a  discovery 
which  he  made  in  the  cover  of  a  book  which 
he  had  unearthed  in  this  dusky  depository: 
"  It  was  a  small  quarto  volume,  containing 
two  books  bound  in  one,  a  work  of  Jerome 
Gebuiller  on  the  origin  and  ancestry  of 
Ferdinand,  Emperor  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire,  printed  at  Haganau  in  1530,  and 
an  account  of  the  siege  of  Vienna  by  the 
Turks,  under  Suleiman,  in  1529,  printed  at 
Augsburg,  1530.  The  volume  was  bound 
in  paper  boards  covered  with  calfskin. 
Inside  one  of  these  covers  were  found 
the  following  sheets,  which  had  been 
pasted  and  pressed  together  to  form  the 
binder's  board,  a  common  practice  with 
the  1 6th  century  binders: 

First. — A  sheet  printed  in  a  large  and 
beautiful  black  letter,  four  pages  of  Low 
Dutch  poetry.  Second. — Two  sheets  from 
a  book,  "  Exposito  Sacri  Canonis,"  a  small 
16  mo.  page,  Roman  type.  Third. — Two 
sheets  from  a  small  (16  mo.)  Book  of  Hours, 
black  letter,  late  15th  or  early  1 6th  century. 
Fourth. — The  last  sheet  of  a  black  letter  12 
mo.  book,  religious,  in  Dutch,  having  one 
full-page  woodcut,  the  double  eagle  device 

15 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


of  the  printer  and  the  colophon  of  Voster- 
man.  Fifth. — Four  pages  or  one  sheet  of 
a  neatly  printed  missal  in  red  and  black. 
Sixth. — Two  sheets  of  a  black  letter  book 
in  Low  Dutch — prose  and  poetry — with 
colophon  of  Vosterman,  no  date  or  wood- 
cut device.  Seventh. — Two  sheets  from  an 
edition  of  Despauterius's  Latin  Grammar, 
circa  1542.  Eighth. — Some  sheets  of  brown 
paper." 

An  enterprising  firm  of  booksellers  in 
this  city  placard  their  window  in  this  entic- 
ing fashion  :  "25,000  books  at  our  price, 
50,000  at  your  price,  100,000  at  any  price." 
It  was  books  in  the  last-named  category  of 
which  Mr.  Gowans  was  the  most  liberal 
purchaser.  He,  or  his  representative,  was 
in  constant  attendance  at  the  auction  room. 
When  the  auctioneer  could  obtain  no  other 
bid,  the  lot  would  be  knocked  down  at  a 
nominal  price  to  ' '  Mr.  Chase, "  Mr.  Gowans's 
commercial  pseudonym.  Thus  he  bought 
extensively  without  making  serious  inroads 
into  his  capital. 

At  these  auction  sales  Mr.  Gowans  ap- 
pears to  have  been  addicted  to  a  practice  of 
interrupting  the  auctioneer  with  questions 
concerning  the  book  that  was  passing  under 
the  hammer.  When  the  celebrated  John 
16 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


Keese  filled  the  "pulpit,"  Mr.  Gowans 
always  found  his  match.  A  work  entitled 
"History  of  the  Taters,"  was  offered  for 
sale. 

' '  Is  not  that  Tartars  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Gowans. 

"No;  their  wives  were  the  tartars,"  was 
the  immediate  reply.  There  are  many 
amusing  anecdotes  still  in  circulation  that 
illustrate  the  ready  wit  of  this  popular  mem- 
ber of  the  book  auction  firm  of  Cooley, 
Keese  &  Co.  People  flocked  to  their  even- 
ing sales  as  they  would  to  a  play,  and  the 
comedian  Burton,  it  is  said,  regarded  them 
as  no  contemptible  rival  to  his  theatre  in 
Chambers  Street. 

A  full  list  of  Mr.  Gowans's  customers  and 
casual  visitors  would  go  far  toward  supply- 
ing the  material  for  a  social  register  and  a 
roll-call  of  the  men  of  letters  of  the  day. 
In  it  we  find  the  names  of  John  Howard 
Payne,  Fitz-Greene  Halleck,  MacDonald 
Clark,  Millard  Fillmore,  Rufus  Choate, 
Audubon,  the  ornithologist,  William  Cullen 
Bryant,  Dr.  Bethune,  Dr.  William  C.  Prime, 
John  Carter  Brown,  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
Dr.  S.  S.  Purple,  Dr.  Brandreth,  of  pill 
fame,  Hon.  John  Bigelow,  Robert  Balmano, 
John  Romeyn  Broadhead,  George  Brinley, 
William  Allen  Butler,  George  Bancroft,  S.  L. 


17 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


M.  Barlow,  Fredericks.  Cozzens,  George  W. 
Childs,  Alexander  J.  Cotheal,  George  Will- 
iam Curtis,  Judge  Charles  P.  Daly,  Evert  A. 
and  George  L.  Duyckinck,  David  Dudley 
Field,  S.  C.  Goodrich  (Peter  Parley),  James 
A.  Garfield  (before  the  war),  Washington 
Irving,  James  Lenox,  Daniel  D.  Lord,  Benson 
J.  Lossing,  Henry  W.  Longfellow,  George 
P.  Morris,  Bishop  Mcllvane,  Henry  C.  Mur- 
phy, James  Parton,  Henry  T.  Tuckerman, 
Richard  Grant  White,  Gulian  C.  Verplanck, 
General  Dix,  and  so  on.  The  list  might  be 
extended  indefinitely. 

In  one  of  the  notes  with  which  his  cata- 
logues are  interspersed,  and  which  bear  the 
singular  nom  de  plume  of  "  Western  Memo- 
rabilia," Mr.  Gowans  informs  us  that  in  1847 
he  met  the  "  venerable  widow  of  Alexander 
Hamilton,  and  took  the  opportunity  of  mak- 
ing several  inquiries  of  her  regarding  Wash- 
ington, which  met  with  ready  and  satisfac- 
tory answers."  He  noted  that  her  eyes 
still  possessed  their  youthful  brilliancy, 
although  her  other  features  showed  all  the 
marks  of  extreme  old  age,  as  she  was  then 
nearly  one  hundred  years  old. 

Mr.  Gowans  states  that  he  frequently  came 
in  contact  with  John  Howard  Payne,  and 
that  he  impressed  him  as  a  melancholy, 
18 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


despondent,  heart-broken  man.  The  last 
time  he  saw  the  poet  was  on  the  eve  of  his 
departure  on  his  mission  to  the  Barbary 
States.  He  said  he  had  had  great  difficulty 
in  procuring  his  appointment,  and  was  com- 
pelled to  bear  his  own  expenses  in  repairing 
to  his  post  of  duty — the  Government  having 
refused  to  defray  them.  Mr.  Gowans  fore- 
told correctly,  that  notwithstanding  all  the 
songs,  dramas,  newspaper  and  magazine 
criticisms,  and  biographical  sketches  Payne 
had  written,  posterity  would  know  him 
only  by  his  single  song  of  "Home,  Sweet 
Home." 

MacDonald  Clarke,  "the  mad  poet,"  was 
a  daily  visitor  at  Mr.  Gowans's  store  for 
more  than  twenty  years.  "  He  appeared," 
says  Mr.  Gowans,  "to  have  the  simplicity  of 
a  child,  the  innocence  of  the  dove,  but  none 
of  the  cunning  of  the  serpent.  By  nature  a 
poet,  but  wanting  cultivation  sadly;  nor 
would  he  read  Shakspeare  or  Milton,  nor 
any  of  the  great  poets,  'lest,'  said  he,  'I 
should  spoil  my  own  originality.'  " 

From  Mr.  Audubon,  the  author  of  "  The 
Birds  of  America,"  Mr.  Gowans  received 
the  following  account  of  his  unfortunate 
experience  with  his  monumental  work:  "  I 
did  not  sell  more  than  forty  copies  of  my 

19 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

work  in  England,  Ireland,  Scotland  and 
France,  of  which  Louis  Philippe  took  ten, 
and  offered  to  subscribe  for  a  hundred  if  the 
work  was  published  in  Paris."  The  follow- 
ing subscribers  received  their  copies,  but 
never  paid  for  them:  George  IV.,  The 
Duchess  of  Clarence,  The  Marquis  of  Lon- 
donderry, The  Princess  of  Hesse-Homburg; 
an  Irish  Lord  (whose  name  Audubon  could 
not  give)  took  two,  and  paid  for  neither — 
the  same  could  be  said  of  a  wealthy  citizen 
of  the  United  States.  Audubon  further 
stated  that  he  sold  only  seventy-five  copies 
of  his  book  in  America  (twenty-six  of 
which  were  sold  in  New  York  and  twenty- 
four  in  Boston) ;  that  the  work  altogether 
cost  him  twenty-seven  thousand  pounds 
sterling,  and  that  by  it  he  lost  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars. 

When  Edwin  Forrest  first  appeared  upon 
the  boards  of  the  Bowery  Theatre,  Mr. 
Gowans  was  connected  with  that  institu- 
tion in  a  minor  capacity,  and  enjoyed  the 
opportunity  of  seeing  him  act  nightly.  In 
1865,  thirty-five  years  later,  he  saw  the 
tragedian  again,  in  "  Richelieu  "  and  "  Ham- 
let," and  declared,  that  as  an  actor  he  pleased 
him  better  in  1830.  "Nevertheless,"  he 
states,  "his  popularity  appeared  undimin- 
20 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


ished,  and  at  all  the  performances  the  theatre 
was  literally  crammed  from  roof  to  founda- 
tion." 

Shortly  after  the  first  arrival  of  Fanny 
Kemble,  Mr.  Gowans  witnessed  her  per- 
formance at  the  Park  Theatre,  where  im- 
mense crowds  flocked  to  see  her,  and  de- 
clared that  she  was  "  matchless  as  an  actress, 
and  divine  as  a  young  and  beautiful  woman. " 
Fifteen  years  later  Mr.  Gowans  saw  and 
heard  her  again  in  the  New  York  Tabernacle, 
at  Broadway  and  Worth  Street,  and  found 
that  she  had  grown  stout  and  unattractive. 

Mr.  Gov/ans  devotes  much  space  in  his 
"  memorablia  "  to  that  singular  character, 
Eleazer  Williams,  the  reputed  lost  Prince 
of  the  House  of  Bourbon,  son  of  Louis  XVI., 
who  was  said  to  have  been  committed  to 
the  care  of  some  unknown  person,  and  by 
him  either  carried  or  sent  to  America  and 
consigned  to  a  certain  tribe  of  Indians  in  the 
western  part  of  New  York  State,  who 
adopted  him  and  brought  him  up  in  their 
wild  habits  and  customs.  By  some  means 
he  obtained  a  good  education,  and  after  due 
preparation  was  ordained  by  Bishop  Ho- 
bart,  in  1826,  and  as  a  minister  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church  passed  the  best  part  of  his  life 
among  the  Indians.    To  Mr.  Gowans  he 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


appeared  to  have  a  striking  resemblance  to 
Louis  XVI.  as  represented  by  the  engraved 
portraits  that  he  had  seen.  "  Large,  massy, 
full  face,  aquiline  nose,  dark  eyes,  swarthy 
complexion,  heavy,  corpulent  frame,  and  he 
spoke  in  slow,  solemn  tones."  Dr.  John 
W.  Francis,  the  well-known  physician,  and 
a  recognized  authority  on  old  New  York 
and  New  Yorkers,  was  acquainted  with 
Williams  for  half  a  century,  and  he  also 
thought  he  looked  very  like  a  Bourbon. 
But  there  have  been  no  less  than  thirty  pre- 
tenders who  from  time  to  time  have  posed 
as  the  ill-fated  Dauphin.  Mr.  Gowans  once 
asked  Eleazer  Williams  his  own  views  upon 
this  matter.  His  reply  was  that  "ambi- 
tion, worldly  pride,  vanity  and  notoriety 
would  seem  to  prompt  his  carnal  mind  to 
adopt  the  view  that  he  was  the  actual  heir 
to  the  French  throne;  but  again,"  he  said, 
"Christian  humility  and  a  consciousness 
of  my  position  forbid  me  to  entertain  such 
worldly  and  ambitious  views.  I  therefore 
have  left  the  whole  subject  to  those  who 
feel  any  interest  in  such  discussions,  to 
make  of  it  what  they  may."  This  is  a 
method  of  unburdening  one's  conscience 
which  recalls  the  story  of  the  artless  maid- 
en who,  having  decided  that  her  fine  gowns 


22 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


were  leading  her  to  perdition,  generously 
bestowed  her  entire  wardrobe  of  ball-dresses 
upon  her  dear  sisters. 

For  eight  months  Mr.  Gowans  lived  in 
the  same  house  with  Edgar  Allen  Poe.  He 
tells  us  that  he  "saw  much  of  and  often 
had  an  opportunity  to  converse  with  him," 
and  he  testifies  that  he  never  saw  him  in 
the  least  affected  by  liquor  or  knew  him  to 
descend  to  any  known  vice,  while  he  was 
one  of  the  most  courteous,  gentlemanly  and 
intelligent  companions  he  had  ever  met 
with.  His  wife  he  describes  as  of  match- 
less beauty  and  loveliness,  and  of  a  temper 
and  disposition  of  surpassing  sweetness, 
and  he  quotes  these  fond  lines  of  Poe  ad- 
dressed to  her: 

"  But  our  love  it  was  stronger  by  far  than  the  love 
Of  those  who  were  older  than  we, 
Of  many  far  wiser  than  we  ; 
And  neither  the  angels  in  Heaven  above, 
Nor  the  demons  under  the  sea, 
Can  ever  dissever  my  soul  from  the  soul 
Of  the  beautiful  Annabel  Lee." 

In  a  note  covering  more  than  two  pages 
of  his  catalogue,  Mr.  Gowans  claims  to  have 
been  instrumental  in  giving  the  New  York 
Herald  its  start  in  life.  Dr.  Benjamin  Bran- 
dreth,  the  renowned  pill-maker,  made  Mr. 

23 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

Gowans  an  agent  for  the  sale  of  his  pills, 
and  wishing  to  give  them  as  wide  an 
advertisement  as  possible,  consulted  him 
as  to  the  best  paper  for  his  purpose.  Mr. 
Gowans  suggested  the  New  York  Herald, 
which  had  lately  begun  its  career.  Dr. 
Brandreth  went  to  Mr.  Bennett,  made  terms 
with  him  for  advertising,  and  for  a  long 
time  paid  him  a  considerable  sum  weekly 
for  the  use  of  his  columns. 

Mr.  Gowans  frequently  met  Fitz-Greene 
Halleck,  who  was  then  keeping  accounts  in 
the  private  real  estate  office  of  John  Jacob 
Astor,  and  only  occasionally  indulging  his 
poetic  vein,  because,  as  he  is  reported  to 
have  said,  being  under  the  necessity  of 
earning  a  livelihood,  he  could  not  afford  to 
incur  the  adverse  criticism  aroused  thereby. 
He  had  already  more  reputation  as  a  poet 
than  was  good  for  him  in  the  esteem  of 
men  engaged  in  business  pursuits.  The 
old  New  England  theory  that  a  genius  must 
necessarily  be  deficient  in  common  sense, 
and  nigh  worthless  as  a  business  man,  is 
not  yet  entirely  abandoned  in  this  commer- 
cial community.  Mr.  Gowans  covers  more 
than  two  pages  with  reminiscences  of  the 
poet;  but  they  contain  little  that  is  new  of 
interest  in  relation  to  one  of  the  most  grace- 


24 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

ful  writers  of  verse  that  ever  made  our  city 
his  adopted  home. 

Another  well-known  character  who  fre- 
quented the  old  book  shop  was  that  inde- 
fatigable collector  of  books  and  "  auld  nick- 
nackets,  Rusty  aim  caps  and  jinglin'  jack- 
ets," John  Allan.  He  haunted  it  daily.  After 
the  sale  of  Mr.  Allan's  effects  in  May,  1864, 
Mr.  Gowans  published  a  price  list  of  the  arti- 
cles sold,  with  the  names  of  the  purchasers. 
From  his  introduction  to  this  pamphlet  we 
abstract  the  following  paragraphs  : 

"  I  had  the  happiness,  as  well  as  the  good 
fortune,  to  have  been  intimately  acquainted 
with  him  (John  Allan)  for  over  twenty-five 
years.  During  that  time,  and  long  before, 
it  was  his  steady,  constant  and  persistent 
aim  to  be  adding  to  his  unique  collection 
by  all  means  within  his  reach.  On  many 
of  these  occasions,  after  having  secured  a 
new  accession,  he  would  come  tripping 
into  my  store,  with  a  foot  as  noiseless  as 
that  of  Grimalkin,  and  spirits  as  buoyant 
and  joyful  as  a  youth  let  loose  from  school. 
*         *         *         *  * 

"  It  would  be  out  of  place  to  enumerate 
the  principal  articles,  with  a  history  of  their 
peculiarities,  for  that  would  take  a  vol- 
ume much  larger  than  the  catalogue  itself. 

25 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

I  will,  however,  mention  the  four  which  he 
prided  himself  most  in  possessing,  namely, 
the  folio  containing  the  three  hundred  por- 
traits of  and  views  relating  to  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots;  George  Withers's  Book  of  Em- 
blems ;  Elliott's  Indian  version  of  the  Bible, 
and  the  Kilmarnock  edition  of  the  works  of 
Robert  Burn-s. 

***** 

"Inasmuch  as  no  collection  like  that  of 
Mr.  Allan's  for  intrinsic  value  and  unparal- 
leled rarity  has  heretofore  been  offered  for 
public  competition  in  America,  it  will  form 
an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  sale  of  liter- 
ary, artistic  and  antiquarian  property  in  the 
United  States,  and  will  in  some  measure 
test  the  popular  taste  for  collecting  such 
heir-looms." 

The  test  proved  eminently  satisfactory. 
The  sale  was  an  unqualified  success,  and 
one  that  could  not  be  repeated  to-day. 
Our  book  collectors  have  become  too  know- 
ing and  fastidious,  and  Mr.  Allan's  books 
were  not,  as  a  rule,  in  superlative  condition. 

In  an  irregular  fashion  Mr.  Gowans's  cat- 
alogues are  thus  interspersed  with  notes  of 
a  more  or  less  interesting  character.  They 
are  not,  however,  so  voluminous  as  at 
a  first  glance  appears,  as  the  same  notes 
26 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

are  made  to  do  service  over  and  over 
again. 

Urbanity  of  manner  was  not  one  of  Mr. 
Gowans's  prominent  characteristics,  but  he 
could  be  genial  and  communicative  when 
in  the  humor,  and  with  those  who  had  won 
his  esteem  and  confidence.  He  seems  to 
have  entertained  no  feeling  of  rivalry  to- 
ward his  brother  bibliopoles.  In  one  of  his 
notes  he  refers  most  pleasantly  and  in  highly 
complimentary  terms  to  his  neighboring 
bookseller,  Joseph  Sabin,  of  whose  knowl- 
edge of  books  he  justly  entertained  a  high 
opinion. 

Mr.  Gowans  issued  in  all  twenty-eight 
catalogues,  the  first  in  1842,  and  the  last  in 
1870,  the  year  of  his  death.  The  later  ones 
were  carefully  compiled  and  neatly  printed 
on  good  paper  at  the  press  of  Joel  Mun- 
sell,  the  well-known  Albany  printer,  in  his 
day  one  of  the  leading  typographers  of  the 
country.  In  1833  Mr.  Gowans  added  to  his 
other  "literary  business  "  that  of  publisher, 
his  first  venture  being  "  Phsedo  ;  or  the 
Immortality  of  the  Soul,"  by  Plato,  trans- 
lated from  the  Greek  by  Charles  L.  Stan- 
ford. His  second  book  was  "The  Phcenix," 
a  collection  of  old  and  rare  fragments,  viz. : 
"Morals  of  Confucius,"  "Oracles  of  Zo- 


27 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

roaster,"  etc.  In  addition  to  the  foregoing 
he  published,  at  various  periods  from  1833 
down  to  1870,  about  thirty-five  volumes, 
including  five  historical  reprints,  which 
were  issued  under  the  title  of  "Gowans's 
Bibliotheca  Americana." 

Mr.  Gowans  married  when  in  middle  life, 
a  Miss  Bradley,  of  New  York,  with  whom 
he  lived  happily  for  ten  years.  She  died 
leaving  no  children.  His  own  death  came 
suddenly.  He  was  stricken  with  apoplexy 
while  walking  in  the  streets  on  Thanksgiv- 
ing eve,  1870,  and  died  at  his  home,  No. 
13  Second  Street,  on  the  following  Sunday. 
He  was  buried  beside  his  wife  in  Woodlawn 
Cemetery,  where  at  the  time  of  her  death 
he  had  purchased  a  plot. 

The  auction  sale  of  the  mass  of  printed 
matter  which  had  accumulated  at  1 15  Nassau 
Street  began  January  30,  1871.  The  cata- 
logue was  in  sixteen  parts,  containing  2,476 
pages.  The  sale  netted  about  thirty-three 
thousand  dollars.  The  pecuniary  result  to 
his  heirs,  a  brother  and  his  children  living 
in  Kentucky,  would  have  been  still  more 
gratifying  if  more  books  and  pamphlets  had 
been  added  to  the  eight  tons  which  were 
sold  for  paper  stock.  Many  of  the  lots 
brought  less  than  the  cost  of  cataloguing 
28 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


them.  The  expenses  connected  with  the 
sale  are  said  to  have  amounted  to  over 
$15,000,  or  to  thirty  per  cent,  of  the  total 
sum  paid  by  the  book-buying  public  for 
this  huge  accumulation  of  paper  and  print- 
er's ink. 


strong  advocate  of  total  abstinence,  and  in 
his  younger  days  wrote  and  lectured  upon 
the  subject  of  temperance.  He  practiced 
what  he  preached — water  pure  and  simple 
was  his  exclusive  beverage,  and  he  es- 
chewed tobacco  in  all  its  forms  ;  but  in 
point  of  mental  activity  he  failed  to  exer- 
cise a  corresponding  degree  of  moderation. 
To  the  cares  of  a  considerable  business  in 
the  importation  and  sale  of  books  he  added 
the  labors  of  a  publisher,  the  drudgery 
of  compiling  catalogues,  and  the  arduous 


11 


JOSEPH  SABIN 


plpHEN  the  bookseller  and  bib- 
m~  liographer,  Joseph  Sabin, 
I  succumbed  to  overwork, 
I  "  Killed  by  a  Dictionary" 
i!)  was  suggested  as  his  most 
fitting  epitaph.     He  was  a 


29 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

calling  of  a  book  auctioneer,  and  then  took 
upon  his  broad  shoulders  a  literary  burden 
of  indefinite  proportions  in  his  "  Dictionary 
of  Books  Relating  to  America." 

This  indefatigable  worker  in  the  twin 
fields  of  bibliography  and  bibliopolism  was 
born  in  1821  in  Branston,  Northampton- 
shire, England,  and  at  the  age  of  fourteen 
was  apprenticed  to  Charles  Richards,  an 
Oxford  bookseller  and  stationer.  Two 
years  after  the  completion  of  his  seven 
years'  apprenticeship  he  married,  and  in 
1848  emigrated  to  the  United  States,  arriv- 
ing in  New  York  on  July  3d.  He  estab- 
lished himself  at  first  in  Philadelphia,  and 
purchased  a  farm  of  thirty  acres  at  Chest- 
nut Hill,  which  would  have  greatly  enriched 
his  heirs  if  they  had  retained  possession  of 
it  until  the  present  time. 

In  1850  Mr.  Sabin  removed  to  New  York, 
and  was  connected  for  a  time  with  the  well- 
known  book  auction  firm  of  Cooley  and 
Keese,  where  he  was  principally  employed 
in  preparing  catalogues  of  the  better  class  of 
books.  In  the  panic  year  of  1857  he  re- 
turned to  Philadelphia  and  engaged  in  busi- 
ness as  an  importer  of  fine  books.  At  the 
outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  he  lost  many  of 
his  customers,  and  again  sought  to  retrieve 
30 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

his  fortunes  in  this  city.  He  opened  first  a 
book  auction-house,  and  then  a  bookshop 
in  Canal  Street.  Again  he  returned  to  his 
farm  and  began  work  upon  his  "  Dictionary 
of  Books  Relating  to  America  from  its  Dis- 
covery to  the  Present  Time."  A  year  or  two 
later  found  him  once  more  in  New  York  in 
the  employ  of  the  Riverside  Press  publish- 
ers, Hurd  and  Houghton.  In  1864  he  ven- 
tured into  busines  on  his  own  account,  and 
purchased  for  $9,000  the  stock  and  good- 
will of  Michael  Noonan,  a  genial  and  popu- 
lar Irishman  who  had  built  up  quite  a 
respectable  business  in  second-hand  and 
new  books.  From  No,  84  Mr.  Sabin 
removed  to  64  Nassau  Street,  where  he 
continued  in  business  until  his  death.  Nas- 
sau Street  from  John  to  Beekman  was  then 
the  "  Rialto  "  of  the  old  book  trade,  and  the 
place  where  book-hunters  most  did  love  to 
congregate. 

Mr.  Sabin's  sales  in  the  ten  years  from 
1864-74  aggregated  over  $1,000,000,  and 
during  this  period  he  supplied  with  some 
of  their  choicest  treasures  many  of  the  pub- 
lic and  private  libraries  then  in  course  of 
formation;  among  them  those  of  Almon 
W.  Griswold  and  William  Menzies,  of  New 
York,  and  Henry  C.  Murphy  and  T.  W. 

31 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

Field,  of  Brooklyn.  The  two  most  promi- 
nent American  collectors  of  the  first  half  of 
this  century,  John  Carter  Brown,  of  Provi- 
dence, and  James  Lenox,  of  New  York, 
had  nearly  ceased  their  purchases  when  Mr. 
Sabin  came  to  New  York,  and  he  supplied 
them  with  comparatively  few  books.  Rare 
Americana  were  Mr.  Sabin's  specialty,  and 
several  of  his  customers  were  advantage- 
ously influenced  by  him  in  turning  their 
attention  in  this  direction.  Many  of  the 
books  which  these  fortunate  individuals 
procured  through  him  have  become,  so  far 
as  booksellers  are  concerned,  simply  fondly 
cherished  memories.  What  book-hunter 
dreams  nowadays  of  finding  in  a  book-stall 
such  nuggets  as  the  first  New  York  Direc- 
tory, the  first  edition  of  Andre's  "Cow 
Chase,"  Symmes's  "Late  Fight  at  Pigg- 
wacket,"  or  a  copy  of  Hariot's  "Virginia," 
the  rare  English  De  Bry,  which  was  sold  to 
Mr.  Kalbfleisch  for  $1,250,  a  long  price  in 
those  days,  but  a  short  one  in  this  year  of 
grace  1895.  Mr.  Sabin  published  a  facsimile 
of  this  excessively  rare  book. 

Rarities  in  the  way  of  English  literature 
were  by  no  means  neglected  by  the  biblio- 
pole of  64  Nassau  Street,  although  the  pres- 
ent fierce  demand  for  first  editions  of  early 
32 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

English  writers  was  still  slumbering.  The 
set  of  five  Waltons  sold  in  this  city  within 
a  few  months  came,  I  believe,  from  Sabin's, 
and  the  first  alone  brought  more  than  two 
and  one-half  times  as  much  as  was  origi- 
nally paid  for  the  set.  Several  copies  of  the 
first  folio  Shakespeare  passed  through  Mr. 
Sabin's  hands,  including  that  of  Sir  William 
Tite  ;  and  the  early  Chaucers,  Miltons,  Ben 
Jonsons,  Spensers,  and  Drydens,  now 
sought  for  with  so  much  eagerness  by 
book  collectors,  were  far  from  being  strang- 
ers to  the  shelves  of  his  bookshop. 

In  those  days  there  was  on  the  part  ot 
book-buyers,  both  here  and  abroad,  a  tol- 
erance of  big  books,  which  no  longer  pre- 
vails to  the  same  extent.  The  ' '  Musee  Fran- 
cais  "  and  "  Musee  Royal,"  Robert's  "Holy 
Land,"  Boydell's  Shakespeare,  Hogarth's 
works,  and  the  whole  long  list  of  elephan- 
tine folios  were  staple  articles  in  the  second- 
hand bookshops.  In  "extra-illustrated" 
books  the  same  preference  for  folios  and  large 
quartos  was  manifested,  obviously  because 
they  permitted  the  insertion  of  large  prints, 
and  so  widened  the  "extra  illustrator's" 
field  of  selection.  Bibliomania  in  this  form 
may  be  said  to  have  reached  its  culminating 
point  during  the  period  of  which  we  write. 


33 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

An  English  dame  of  those  days  greatly  dis- 
tinguished herself  by  " extra  illustrating" 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  at  a  cost,  we 
were  informed,  of  over  ;£  10,000,  not  in- 
cluding the  expense  of  the  book-case,  or 
book-room,  whichever  it  was,  that  was 
found  necessary  to  contain  this  monument 
of  enthusiastic  Grangerism. 

The  sale  by  the  founder  of  the  house  at 
an  early  stage  in  its  history  of  an  "extra- 
illustrated"  Shakespeare  for  $3,000  is  one  of 
the  never-to-be-forgotten  reminiscences  of 
Joseph  Sabin  and  Sons. 

The  publications  of  Mr.  Sabin,  aside  from 
the  Dictionary,  were  a  monthly  magazine 
called  the  Bibliopolist :  A  Literary  Register 
and  Repository  of  Notes  and  Queries,  etc., 
begun  in  1869,  and  continued  until  April, 
1877;  "A  Bibliography  of  Bibliography ;  or, 
a  Handy  Book  about  Books  which  Relate  to 
Books  "  ;  and  a  series  of  American  reprints, 
ten  of  which  were  issued  in  quarto  size  and 
seven  in  octavo  ;  large  and  small  papers 
were  made  of  each.  It  was  the  day  of  pri- 
vately printed  books  and  'Marge  papers" 
(not  necessarily  large  books  because  they 
were  large  papers),  books  which  have  been 
aptly  described  as  "  mere  rivulets  of  text  in 
a  meadow  of  margin."    A  reprint,  in  three 


34 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


volumes,  of  Garden's  "Anecdotes  of  the 
Revolution  "  published  in  three  sizes — ordi- 
nary paper,  large  paper,  and  what  Mr.  Sabin 
dubbed  ' '  blanket  folio  " — capped  the  climax 
in  these  typographical  absurdities,  and 
brought  them  into  merited  disfavor.  They, 
however,  reappeared  later  disguised  under 
the  name  of  editions  de  luxe. 

The  first  important  collection  of  books 
catalogued  by  Mr.  Sabin  was  that  of  the 
comedian,  W.  E.  Burton,  in  i860.  In  1864 
he  catalogued  the  collection  of  the  old 
Scotch  antiquarian,  John  Allan,  of  pleasant 
memory.  The  title  on  the  cover  of  this 
catalogue  was  not  composed  by  Mr.  Sabin. 
In  his  opinion  it  was  awkwardly  con- 
structed, and,  not  being  willing  to  father  it, 
he  signed  himself  as  "  Compiler  of  this  cata- 
logue, the  cover  excepted. " 

Among  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  or  more 
libraries  which  Mr.  Sabin  is  said  to  have 
catalogued  was  that  of  the  Shakespearean 
scholar,  Richard  Grant  White,  who  re- 
marked, as  the  result  of  his  observations, 
that  if  anybody  thought  that  bibliography 
was  an  easy  subject  he  should  serve  an  ap- 
prenticeship under  Joseph  Sabin. 

The  book  auction  sales  at  which  Mr. 
Sabin  officiated  included  some  of  the  most 


35 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

important  that  have  occurred  in  this  coun- 
try. The  last  at  which  he  presided  was  the 
great  Brinley  sale.  This  was  divided  into 
five  parts,  and  the  sale  of  the  third  part  was 
set  for  March,  1881,  but  was  postponed  on 
account  of  Mr.  Sabin's  ill-health.  His  family 
had  already  been  informed  by  his  physician 
of  the  fatal  character  of  his  illness.  On 
April  4th  Mr.  Sabin  began  the  sale,  and 
conducted  it  to  a  satisfactory  conclusion. 
On  this  occasion  he  had  the  pleasure  and 
high  bibliopolistic  distinction  of  selling  the 
only  copy  of  the  Mazarin  Bible  that  has  ever 
been  brought  under  the  hammer  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  The  book  was  bought 
by  the  late  Hamilton  Cole  for  $8,000,  and 
the  sale  created  a  sensation  in  the  book- 
buying  world,  which  was  revived  when  the 
two  volumes  again  appeared  at  auction  in 
the  dispersion  of  the  collection  of  Mr. 
Brayton  Ives,  and  were  taken  to  Chicago 
at  a  ransom  of  $14,800. 

The  preparation  of  the  Dictionary  was 
begun  about  i860.  The  prospectus  was 
issued  in  December,  1866,  and  the  first  part 
was  published  in  1867.  It  continued  to 
make  its  appearance  in  parts  at  irregular 
intervals  until  the  death  of  the  author.  It 
was  his  "old  man  of  the  sea."  Early 
36 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

morning  hours,  the  small  hours  of  the  night, 
and  stolen  moments  in  cars  and  on  ship- 
board were  devoted  to  it.  At  Mr.  Sabin's 
death  eighty  parts,  describing  over  fifty- 
eight  thousand  lots,  had  been  issued,  bring- 
ing the  work  down  in  alphabetical  order  to 
the  letters  Pa.  The  manuscript  left  unpub- 
lished is  now  being  revised  by  Mr.  Wilber- 
force  Eames,  of  the  Lenox  Library,  and 
thirty-six  additional  parts  have  so  far  been 
printed,  completing  the  work  as  far  as  the 
word  Smith.  In  his  process  of  revision 
Mr.  Eames  occasionally  must  meet  with 
the  handwriting  of  the  founder  of  the  insti- 
tution he  serves,  as  Mr.  Lenox  was  espe- 
cially interested  in  this  particular  work  of 
Mr.  Sabin,  and  rendered  him  valuable  as- 
sistance by  bringing  him  titles  of  rare  books 
in  his  own  collection,  which  were  unob- 
tainable from  any  other  source. 

Mr.  Sabin  was  a  genuine  lover  of  books 
and  a  patient,  painstaking  student  of  bibli- 
ography. He  was  a  better  bibliophile  than 
he  was  a  merchant,  and  his  customers 
would  often  find  him  more  eager  to  discuss 
the  bibliographical  points  of  his  literary 
wares  than  to  effect  a  sale  of  them.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  he  should  disrelish  hav- 
ing his  dictum  called  in  question,  and  that 


37 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

he  sometimes  met  an  assumption  of  supe- 
rior knowledge  with  a  show  of  impatience. 
A  youth  once  brought  him  for  sale  a  volume 
of  the  Mexican  Boundary  Survey,  published 
by  the  United  States  Government.  Mr. 
Sabin  told  him  that  it  was  not  perfect,  but 
should  be  in  two  volumes.  The  young 
man  insisted  that  the  book  was  perfect  until 
Mr.  Sabin  closed  the  discussion  by  saying 
jocosely,  "Young  man,  if  that  work  was 
contained  in  one  volume  it  would  make  a 
book  as  thick  as  your  head." 

Thirty  years  ago  the  art  of  bookbinding 
was  not  receiving  in  this  country  the  atten- 
tion now  bestowed  upon  it.  A  step  in  ad- 
vance is  credited  to  Mr.  Sabin,  to  wit,  the 
substitution  of  calf  for  the  cheaper  and  less 
durable  sheepskin  previously  so  extensively 
employed  by  American  binders. 

Mr.  Sabin  died  in  the  harness.  Against 
the  advice  of  his  physician,  he  undertook 
the  auction  of  the  third  part  of  the  Brinley 
Library,  and  his  labors  in  connection  with 
it  may  have  hastened  his  death,  which  oc- 
curred at  his  Brooklyn  home  on  Sunday, 
June  5th,  1 88 1.  His  funeral  services  were 
conducted  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Collyer,  and  he 
was  buried  in  Cypress  Hills  Cemetery. 

They  say  that  there  is  no  money  in  the 

38 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

old  book  business;  however  that  may  be, 
there  is  certainly  in  this,  as  in  any  other 
honorable  pursuit,  something  quite  as  much 
to  be  coveted  as  financial  success,  and  that 
is  the  regard  and  good-will  of  one's  busi- 
ness associates.  These  Mr.  Sabin  enjoyed. 
Mr.  John  Pyne,  his  near  neighbor  for  many 
years,  said  of  Mr.  Sabin  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  that  he  was  the  acknowledged  head 
of  his  profession,  and  was  loved  and  appre- 
ciated by  all  who  knew  him ;  and  sums  up  a 
pleasant  tribute  to  the  memory  of  his  friend 
in  these  words:  "His  love  for  rare  books 
passed  into  knowledge  which  he  used  for 
the  benefit  of  all  who  had  the  pleasure  and 
profit  of  knowing  him." 


Ill 

JOHN  BRADBURN  AND  OTHERS 

MONG  the  Nassau  Street 
1 '  bookshops  of  olden  time, " 
whose  alluring  signs  no 
longer  salute  the  eye  of 
the  passing  bibliophile,  was 
that  of  John  Bradburn,  who 
came  to  this  country  in  1820  from  County 
Westmeath,  Ireland,  where  he  was  born  in 
1805.    He  began  his  career  as  a  vender  of 


39 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


second-hand  books  some  ten  years  later 
than  William  Gowans,  and  in  the  same 
humble  way.  Armed  with  a  basket  filled 
with  books  of  travel  and  works  on  naviga- 
tion he  invaded  the  wharves  and  ships  of 
the  city,  and  drove  a  thriving  trade  with 
ships'  captains  and  mates  just  home  from  a 
cruise  and  with  money  burning  holes 
through  their  freshly  lined  pockets. 

Mr.  Bradburn's  first  place  of  business  was 
on  the  southeastern  corner  of  Fulton  and 
Nassau  Streets.  In  1852  or  1853  ne  re_ 
moved  to  the  northwestern  corner  of  Ann 
and  Nassau  Streets,  where  he  remained  until 
he  retired  from  active  business  in  1868.  The 
old  book  shops  of  his  day  were  commonly 
supplied  with  outside  shelves  and  counters, 
which  were  laden  with  books  and  pamph- 
lets. Here  loungers  with  literary  tastes 
congregated  the  livelong  day,  sipping 
knowledge  as  the  bee  sips  honey,  and 
forming  a  feature  of  New  York  City  street 
life  which  has  passed  almost  entirely  away. 

Mr.  Bradburn  dealt  largely  in  second- 
hand law,  theological  and  medical  books, 
and  his  shop  was  a  veritable  boon  to  impe- 
cunious students  of  theological  seminaries 
and  academies  of  medicine  and  to  briefless 
attorneys  and  counsellors  at  law.    Books  of 


40 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


a  less  utilitarian  character,  but  possessed  of 
more  charms  for  the  bibliophile,  also  found 
their  way  to  his  shop  ;  and  the  patient 
searcher  for  rarities  might  at  any  moment 
stumble  upon  one  tucked  away  among  the 
volumes  clad  in  prosaic  legal  calf  which 
lined  his  shelves. 

When  first  I  knew  this  veteran  of  the  old 
book  trade  he  was  a  pleasant-faced,  elderly 
man,  with  an  air  of  prosperity  and  content- 
ment about  him,  in  puzzling  contrast  to  the 
surroundings  of  his  dingy,  contracted,  but 
typical  old  bookshop.  The  book  business 
prospered  so  well  with  Mr.  Bradburn  that 
he  was  able  to  make  investments  in  such 
choice  Manhattan  real  estate  as  Central  Park 
and  Fifth  Avenue  lots,  the  ' '  unearned  incre- 
ment" of  which  in  course  of  time  made  him 
well-to-do. 

There  is  not  much  ozone  about  old  books, 
nevertheless  dealing  in  them  appears  to  be 
conducive  to  longevity.  C.  S.  Francis,  to 
whom  we  have  still  to  refer,  died  at  the  age 
of  eighty-five;  and  I  have  had  lately  the 
gratification  of  sending  Mr.  Bradburn  my 
congratulations  upon  his  attainment,  on 
April  5th,  1895,  of  his  ninetieth  birthday,  in 
good  health  and  the  full  possession  of  his 
faculties. 


41 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


One  of  Mr.  Bradburn's  near  neighbors 
was  John  Pyne,  a  "  man  of  many  friends," 
who,  we  are  told,  resembled  Joseph  Sabin  in 
this,  that  he  never  smoked  tobacco  or  used 
alcoholic  liquors.  Mr.  Pyne  removed  from 
Nassau  Street  to  the  corner  of  Broadway 
and  Astor  Place.  Not  meeting  with  the 
success  he  had  anticipated,  he  returned  to 
his  former  stand,  but  found  that  many  ot 
his  old  customers  had  drifted  away.  He 
finally  abandoned  the  second-hand  book 
business  and  entered  the  Register's  office  of 
the  City  of  New  York,  where  he  remained 
until  his  death,  in  1894. 

In  Nassau  Street,  between  Fulton  and  Ann 
Streets,  was  the  bookshop  of  T.  H.  Morrell, 
at  one  time  the  rallying  place  for  antiqua- 
rians interested  in  old  New  York  and  Revo- 
lutionary history.  Mr.  Morrell  was  more 
conspicuous  as  an  "extra  illustrator"  than 
as  a  dealer  in  rare  books,  although  he  had 
acquired  a  knowledge  of  and  trafficked  to  a 
considerable  extent  in  the  latter.  His  pro- 
nounced penchant  was  for  books  on  the 
drama,  New  York  City,  and  the  American 
Revolution.  Although  the  books  he  "extra 
illustrated  "  were  for  sale  when  completed — 
unless  executed  to  order — he  lavished  upon 


42 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


them  all  the  skill  and  taste  of  an  experienced 
and  enthusiastic  amateur.  His  knowledge 
of  the  class  of  prints  to  which  he  confined 
his  attention  was  thorough,  and  he  inserted 
in  his  books  the  choicest  and  rarest  that  he 
could  procure.  When  necessary  he  had 
them  repaired  and  restored  by  George 
Trent,  that  unequalled  adept  in  the  art  of 
cleaning,  mending,  and  inlaying  books  and 
prints,  and  then  consigned  the  volumes  to 
the  skillful  hands  of  the  binder,  William 
Matthews. 

A  lasting  monument  to  Mr.  Morrell's  zeal 
and  industry  is  the  copy  of  Dr.  Francis's 
"Old  New  York,"  which  he  illustrated  and 
extended  to  nine  volumes.  This  book 
finally  came  into  the  possession  of  Mr.  J.  H. 
V.  Arnold,  and  at  his  sale  was  purchased 
by  Joseph  Sabin  for  Robert  L.  Stuart  at  a 
cost  of  $230  per  volume.  It  contains  over 
twenty-five  hundred  prints,  water-color 
drawings  and  autographs,  and  among  the 
latter  are  either  letters  or  signatures  of  all 
the  mayors  of  New  York  up  to  the  time 
the  book  was  completed.  It  is  by  far  the 
most  extensively  illustrated  copy  of  any 
book  upon  New  York  local  history,  and 
will  probably  never  be  equalled,  for  there 
are  no  prints  which  have  become  so  scarce 


43 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


as  those  which  relate  to  old  New  York. 
The  lithographic  plates  in  Valentine's 
"  Manual,"  which  earlier  collectors  affected 
to  despise  and  hesitated  to  use,  have  be- 
come Hobson's  choice  with  the  "  extra 
illustrator  "  of  this  fair  city  of  Gotham  of  to- 
day. 

Mr.  Morrell  had  always  betrayed  strong 
dramatic  proclivities,  and  he  finally  donned 
the  tragedian's  garb.  His  formal  entrance 
to  the  stage  was  made  in  the  character  of 
Cardinal  Richelieu,  and  he  selected  Phila- 
delphia as  the  scene  of  the  first  and,  as  I  am 
informed,  last  public  exhibition  of  his  his- 
trionic ability. 

A  few  steps  further  up  Nassau  Street  (No. 
140)  brought  the  book-hunter  on  his  ram- 
bles to  "Old  Hollingsworth's,"  who  after- 
ward migrated  to  the  east  side  of  Broad- 
way, near  Great  Jones  Street.  He  dealt  in 
prints  and  old  magazines;  and  although  his 
shop  was  a  mere  cubby-hole,  it  was  well 
for  the  book  or  print  collector  to  make  in  it 
occasionally  a  tentative  cast  of  his  drag-net. 

Around  the  corner,  in  Fulton  Street,  was 
the  store  of  Timothy  Reeve  and  Company, 
who  dealt  exclusively  in  imported  rare  and 

44 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

standard  books,  which  they  sold  at  retail 
and  to  the  trade  generally  throughout  the 
country.  They  relinquished  business  in 
1866,  and  were  succeeded  by  the  present 
firm  of  S.  B.  Luyster  and  Company. 

Allan  Ebbs  was  located  on  the  west  side 
of  Broadway,  near  Fulton  Street.  His  spe- 
cialty was  high-class  and  handsomely  bound 
English  books.  In  1870,  with  his  family, 
he  took  passage  for  Europe,  and  was  lost 
on  the  "  City  of  Boston." 

C.  S.  Francis  should  have  had  an  earlier 
place  in  these  sketches.  He  came  to  the 
city  in  1826  and  opened  a  store  at  189 
Broadway,  near  Dey  Street.  From  there 
he  removed  to  252  Broadway,  under  the 
famous  old  Peale's  Museum.  For  many 
years  his  store  was  the  headquarters  for 
men  of  letters  and  lovers  of  books.  His 
brother,  D.  G.  Francis,  who  succeeded  him 
in  business,  although  advanced  in  years, 
has  only  within  the  last  few  months  relin- 
quished the  management  of  the  oldest  es- 
tablished bookstore  in  this  city. 

Mr.  C.  S.  Francis  published  the  first 
American  edition  of  "  Aurora  Leigh"  ;  and 
the  writer  has  in  his  possession  Mrs.  Brown- 

45 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

ing's  note  in  relation  to  Mr.  Francis's  acqui- 
sition of  the  copyright,  which  reads  as  fol- 
lows :  "Having  received  what  I  consider 
to  be  sufficient  remuneration  for  my  poem 
of 'Aurora  Leigh  '  from  Mr.  Francis,  of  New 
York,  it  is  my  earnest  desire  that  his  right 
in  this  and  future  editions  of  the  same  may 
not  be  interfered  with."  This  warning  to 
trespassers  is  prominently  displayed  in  the 
edition  published  by  Mr.  Francis  in  1857. 

C.  B.  Richardson,  bookseller  and  pub- 
lisher of  the  Historical  Magazine,  Pollard's 
"  History  of  the  Rebellion,"  and  a  number 
of  Southern  books,  occupied  with  the  old- 
established  firm  of  book  auctioneers,  Bangs, 
Merwin  and  Company,  a  building  at  No. 
594  Broadway,  near  Houston  Street.  Mr. 
Richardson  suffered  a  partial  loss  of  his 
stock  in  a  conflagration  on  the  19th  of  Sep- 
tember 1864,  which  at  the  same  time  de- 
stroyed many  rare  volumes,  the  property  of 
Thomas  Aspinwall,  U.  S.  Consul  to  Lon- 
don, the  collector  of  many  of  the  choice 
books  of  the  late  S.  L.  M.  Barlow. 

Astor  Place  was  for  some  time  and  until 
quite  recently  a  bookselling  and  publishing 
centre.    Here  were  established  John  Wiley 
46 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


and  Son,  whose  business  consisted  largely 
of  the  importation  of  books  bought  to  order 
in  Europe.  Mr.  Lenox  obtained  through 
their  agency  his  beautiful  copy  of  the  Maz- 
arin  Bible,  the  finest  of  the  only  two  copies 
of  this  monument  of  typography  that  have 
ever  been  brought  to  this  country. 

The  figure  of  "  Old  Cronin  "  bending  be- 
neath the  weight  of  the  ponderous  folios 
and  quartos,  which  were  his  principal  stock 
in  trade,  has  been  for  many  years  a  famil- 
iar spectacle  in  the  down-town  streets  of 
New  York.  I  am  told  that  he  still  lives 
and  plies  his  trade,  although  he  has  become 
quite  blind.  Another  original  character  in- 
cidentally and  spasmodically  engaged  in  the 
old  book  business  was  "Jimmy"  Lawlor, 
who  kept  an  uninviting  little  shop  at  the 
lower  end  of  University  Place.  For  a  time 
he  enjoyed  a  virtual  monopoly  of  a  fruitful 
source  of  book  supply.  He  would  pur- 
chase by  the  cubic  foot  the  contents  of  old 
garrets,  and  bought  many  of  his  books  by 
the  pound,  together  with  the  household 
pots,  kettles  and  pans.  The  valuable  books 
that  occasionally  turned  up  in  these  job  lots 
cost  him  next  to  nothing,  and  were  cheap 
to  his  customers  if  he  charged  a  profit  of 


47 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


one  thousand  per  cent.  Acquisitions  from 
this  source  required  careful  collation  on  the 
part  of  the  buyer;  still  it  was  surprising 
how  much  knowledge  of  books  Mr.  Lawlor 
picked  up  in  the  course  of  his  business 
career. 

Other  dealers  in  second-hand  books  in  New 
York  thirty  to  sixty  years  ago  were  M'Elrath 
and  Bangs,  Calvan  Blanchard,  Samuel  Ray- 
ner,  Charles  B.  Norton,  and  John  Doyle, 
whose  signboard  modestly  declared  his  place 
of  business  in  Nassau  Street  to  be  "the 
moral  centre  of  the  intellectual  world." 

The  old  bookshops  of  the  metropolis  be- 
fore the  Civil  War  were  for  the  most  part 
small  and  unpretentious  ;  but  good  books 
and  rare  ones  were  constantly  to  be  found 
in  them  by  alert,  persevering  and  intelligent 
collectors,  and  in  those  days  it  did  not,  as 
it  unfortunately  does  now,  require  the  bank 
account  of  a  millionaire  to  ride  the  hobby 
of  book  collecting  or  indulge  in  the  kindred 
pursuit  of  the  gentle  art  of  angling. 

Indulgence  in  fond  recollections  of  by- 
gone days  is  considered  an  infallible  sign  of 
approaching  senility,  and  we  are  assured 
that  the  present  days  are  a  vast  improve- 
ment upon  any  that  have  preceded  them. 
48 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

Doubtless  they  are — with  exceptions — for 
the  book-hunter  with  a  slender  purse  be- 
yond all  question  has  seen  his  best  days  in 
this  or  any  other  land.  Alike  from  the 
Quay  Voltaire,  Piccadilly  and  Nassau  Street, 

"  the  fabled  treasure  flees, 

Grown  rarer  with  the  fleeting  years, 

In  rich  men's  shelves  they  take  their  ease." 

— Aldine's  Bodonis  Elzevirs. 

Nevertheless,  according  to  Edmund 
Gosse,  there  is  a  pleasure  still  attendant 
upon  the  collector  in  his  poverty — a  happi- 
ness he  shares  with  gentle  Elia  (whom  for 
his  bibliomania  we  love  the  more),  namely, 
"the  exquisite  pleasure  of  buying  what  he 
knows  he  can't  afford." 

When  the  first  of  these  sketches  appeared 
I  was  confronted  with  this  query  from  an 
old  and  respected  member  of  the  booksell- 
ing fraternity:  "  What  is  the  use  of  writing 
about  these  men  ?  They  were  simply  deal- 
ers, and  bought  and  sold  books  as  so  much 
merchandise  for  profit,  and  that  was  all 
there  was  to  it."  Not  quite  all,  my  good 
friend.  An  old  bookshop  is  a  mental  tonic 
to  one  who  merely  whiles  away  an  idle 
hour  therein.  I  am  loath  to  believe  that  one 
can  pass  his  entire  life  among  books,  even 
in  the  way  of  sordid  trade,  without  imbib- 


49 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


ing — it  may  be  in  only  a  superficial  manner 
— a  modicum  of  the  wit,  wisdom  and  phi- 
losophy they  contain,  and  thereby  becoming 
a  less  commonplace  fraction  of  the  mass  of 
humanity.  But  this  may  be  only  a  biblio- 
maniac's fancy,  liable  to  be  shattered  by  the 
first  passing  breath  of  common-sense  criti- 
cism. 


50 


PART  THE  SECOND 

THE  FIRST  ILLUSTRATED  MAGAZINE 
PUBLISHED  IN  NEW  YORK 


The  longest  age  is  but  a  winter's  day : 
Some  break  their  fast,  and  then  depart  away ; 
Others  stay  dinner  and  depart  full  fed  ; 
The  longest  age  but  sups  and  goes  to  bed. 

From  the  ^Parnassiad  of  the  Columbian  Magazine. 


THE  FIRST  ILLUSTRATED  MAGAZINE 
PUBLISHED  IN  NEW  YORK 

might  have  been  assumed 
by  Samuel  Louden,  book- 
seller and  proprietor  of  the 
New  York  Packet,  that  four 
years  from  the  close  of  the 
War  of  Independence  was 
too  short  a  period  of  time  in  which  to 
expect  the  citizen  of  the  new-born  Ameri- 
can Republic  to  repair  his  broken  fortunes 
and  turn  his  thoughts  from  the  din  of  battle 
and  the  tented  field  to  the  gentle  arts  and 
walks  of  peace.  As  the  sequel  proved,  he 
did  forestall  somewhat  the  domestic  mar- 


53 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

ket  for  such  wares,  when  in  1787  he  ven- 
tured upon  the  publication  of  a  literary 
magazine  in  the  city  of  New  York.  It  was 
patriotically  christened  the  American,  and 
was  placed  under  the  editorship  of  that 
American  lexicographer  and  grammarian 
whose  name  has  so  long  been  the  school- 
boy's household  word,  if  not  his  terror, 
Noah  Webster.  This  pioneer  of  New  York 
magazines  was  ushered  into  being  Decem- 
ber, 1787,  and  in  November,  1788,  it  quietly 
passed  away,  bequeathing  to  the  Common- 
wealth an  example  of  laudable  though  un- 
successful endeavor,  and  an  octavo  volume 
of  882  pages. 

The  American  was  without  illustrations, 
so  that  the  mantle  of  leadership  in  the  army 
of  New  York  illustrated  periodicals,  since 
become  so  numerous  a  body,  rests  upon  the 
New  York  Magazine,  the  prospectus  and 
first  number  of  which  made  its  appearance 
about  a  twelvemonth  after  the  demise  of  its 
short-lived  predecessor.  It  was  continued 
for  eight  years  without  interruption,  from 
January,  1790  to  1797,  when  it  also  ceased 
to  exist,  either  from  lack  of  patronage  or  for 
other  good  and  substantial  reasons  un- 
known to  the  writer. 

Magazines  identical  in  scope  and  charac- 

54 


THE  FIRST  ILLUSTRATED  MAGAZINE 

ter  were  established  almost  simultaneously 
in  the  two  principal  cities  of  the  Northern 
States  outside  of  the  city  of  New  York — the 
Columbian  in  Philadelphia,  and  the  Massa- 
chusetts in  Boston.  The  latter,  as  an  illus- 
trated magazine,  was  preceded  by  the  Royal 
American,  founded  in  January,  1774,  by 
Isaiah  Thomas.  It  was  suspended  at  the 
expiration  of  six  months,  and  soon  after 
abandoned  by  him.  Later  it  was  revived 
by  Joseph  Greenleaf,  and  continued  under 
his  management  until  the  beginning  of  the 
War.  It  was  the  last  periodical  established 
in  Boston  before  the  Revolution.  It  con- 
tains engavings  executed  by  the  patriot, 
artist,  and  silversmith,  Paul  Revere,  includ- 
ing the  portraits  of  Samuel  Adams  and  John 
Hancock,  which  are,  considering  the  pre- 
Revolutionary  origin  of  the  prints  and  the 
national  fame  of  the  engraver,  the  most  in- 
teresting, as  they  are  the  rarest  of  all  exist- 
ing specimens  of  early  American  engraved 
portraits. 

Copper-plate  engravings  were  also  used 
in  the  Pennsylvania  Magazine,  published  in 
Philadelphia  in  1775  and  1776,  by  Robert 
Aitkin.  They  consist  of  maps,  plans  and 
views,  the  most  interesting  of  the  latter 
being  "A  Correct  View  of  the  Late  Battle 


55 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

at  Charlestown,  June  17th,  1775,"  published 
in  the  number  for  September  of  that  year. 

It  behooves  the  seeker  of  early  American 
prints  to  bear  the  titles  of  these  four  maga- 
zines well  in  mind,  although  he  will  not  run 
chock-a-block  against  them  in  the  first 
bookshop  he  comes  to,  nor  in  the  second. 
The  Philadelphia  Magazine  is  not  quite  so 
difficult  to  find  as  the  other  three. 

The  publishers  of  the  New  York  Magazine 
were  Thomas  and  James  Swords,  of  No.  44 
Crown  Street,  known  for  many  years  as 
publishers  of  books  relating  to  the  Episcopal 
Church 

They  recite  in  their  preface  that  the  pro- 
posed work  will  be  printed  with  beautiful 
new  type  cast  by  the  ingenius  Mr.  Caslon, 
on  good  American  manufactured  paper,  that 
it  will  consist  of  64  pages,  and  be  published 
the  first  of  each  month.  "  Each  number," 
they  add,  "will  contain  one  or  more  copper 
plates  representing  some  particular  passage 
in  the  work." 

The  price  to  subscribers  was  fixed  at 
eighteen  shillings,  payable  upon  the  instal- 
ment plan ;  five  shillings  upon  the  delivery 
of  the  first  number;  five  on  the  delivery  of 
the  sixth,  and  the  remaining  eight  at  the 
expiration  of  the  year.  The  generous  prop- 
56 


THE  FIRST  ILLUSTRATED  MAGAZINE 

osition  was  also  made,  that  if  on  delivery 
of  the  third  number  the  work  should  not 
appear  to  equal  the  expectation  of  any  sub- 
scriber, it  would  be  at  his  option  to  discon- 
tinue his  subscription  under  forfeit  of  the 
five  shillings  already  paid.  To  non-sub- 
scribers the  price  of  each  number  was  two 
shillings. 

The  publishers  appear  to  have  launched 
their  literary  craft  with  some  mental  mis. 
givings,  and  in  an  address  to  the  public  they 
humbly  solicit  the  countenance  and  support 
of  the  native  and  free-born  Americans, 
"whose  characteristic  has  ever  been  to 
foster  and  cultivate  the  arts,  and  to  reward 
honest  industry  by  the  bounty  of  a  liberal 
hand."  In  conclusion  they  state  that  if 
"this  appeal  for  support  is  merely  sufficient 
to  defray  expenses  the  magazine  will  live; 
if  it  is  inadequate  it  must  DIE." 

The  magazine  began  its  career  with  the 
respectable  number  of  369  subscribers.  The 
list  is  headed  by  their  Excellencies  the  Presi- 
dent and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States, 
and  in  its  columns  appear  the  names  of 
New  York's  most  prominent  citizens,  the 
Jays,  Duers,  Bleeckers  and  De  Peysters, 
Richard  Varick,  Gabriel  Eurman,  Elias 
Hicks  and  John  Pintard.    There  are  also  a 


57 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


goodly  number  of  out-of-town  subscribers, 
among  them  Ralph  Izard,  of  Charleston, 
and  the  Van  Rensselaers,  of  Albany,  and 
curiously,  there  are  not  a  few  names  from 
that — in  those  steamerless  days — far-off  land 
of  the  blue  noses,  Nova  Scotia.  The  New 
York  Magazine  certainly  began  its  career 
under  fairly  promising  auspices,  and  should 
have  enjoyed  a  longer  period  of  usefulness. 

The  literary  feast  which  the  editors  of  the 
New  York  Magazine  spread  before  its  read- 
ers was  sufficiently  diversified  to  suit  the 
most  catholic  tastes.  It  embraced  meteoro- 
logical observations,  historical  sketches, 
essays,  travels,  hints  on  gardening,  short 
stories,  tales  of  adventure,  Congressional 
reports,  foreign  and  domestic  intelligence, 
marriages  and  deaths.  A  large  portion  of 
its  space  was  devoted  to  poetical  effusions, 
and  the  editors  appear  to  have  made  every 
effort  to  foster  the  budding  American  muse, 
and  assist  in  its  laborious  ascent  of  Mount 
Parnassus. 

The  stories  are  either  of  the  highly  sensa- 
tional or  sentimental  order,  and  are  gener- 
ally pointed  with  a  moral.  All  are  clothed 
in  the  stilted  phraseology,  ornate  to  the 
point  of  grotesqueness,  that  flowed  in  such 
full  and  turgid  streams  from  the  pens  of 
58 


THE  FIRST  ILLUSTRATED  MAGAZINE 

eighteenth-century  story-tellers.  The  poetry 
leans  to  the  pathetic  and  lovelorn,  and 
is  attuned  to  touch  the  tender  sensibil- 
ities of  the  members  of  the  gentler  sex 
who  were  among  the  favored  readers  of 
the  only  literary  magazine  of  the  day. 
What  a  fluttering  of  maidens'  hearts  there 
must  have  been  when  this  sugar-coated 
sonnet  appeared  in  the  department  of  "  se- 
lected poetry  " : 

THE   BELLES  OF  NEW  YORK 

Charlotte  hath  charms  to  catch  the  roving  eye, 
And  force  the  timid  youth  to  heave  a  sigh  ; 
Maria,  tripping  lively  through  the  streets, 
Enraptures  by  her  smiles  the  beaux  she  meets. 

Sweet  Nancy,  how  can  any  on  thee  gaze 
And  not  in  transport  celebrate  thy  praise  ? 
In  Wall  Street  oft  I  view  that  beaut'ous  form 
Which  does  my  breast  with  soft  emotions  warm. 

The  Muse  with  pride  and  exultation  tells 
That  fair  Rebecca  ranks  among  the  Belles  ; 
All  that  behold  her  must  admire  her  face, 
And  own  each  gesture  is  replete  with  grace. 

Mary,  a  tribute  surely  now  is  due 
To  Hymen's  fav'rite — and  it  is  to  you 
When  join'd  in  wedlock  may  you  ever  prove 
The  joys  which  spring  from  innocence  and  love. 


59 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


Fain  would  I  mention,  in  this  present  ditty, 

The  num'rous  fair  ones  that  adorn  our  city  ; 

But  this  sweet  talk  would  soon  exhaust  my  rhyme — 

Will  therefore  leave  it  to  another  time. 

Aside  from  the  record  of  marriages  and 
deaths  and  a  few  local  items  of  some  slight 
historical  importance,  there  is  nothing  in 
the  literature  of  the  New  York  Magazine 
that,  if  it  had  been  totally  destroyed,  would 
have  proved  a  serious  loss  to  posterity  or  to 
the  world  of  letters ;  but  in  its  pictorial  fea- 
tures we  find  matter  of  very  considerable 
value  and  interest.  The  publishers  builded 
better  than  they  knew  when  they  sum- 
moned to  their  aid  Anderson,  the  artist,  and 
Tiebout  and  Scoles,  the  copper-plate  en- 
gravers, and  bid  them  depict  for  the  pages 
of  their  magazine  the  architectural  beauties 
of  the  city  of  New  York.  Unfortunately, 
however,  with  these  embellishments  to 
tempt  the  cupidity  of  the  print  collector, 
they  implanted  the  seeds  of  destruction  in 
their  work.  What  has  become  of  the  369 
copies  of  the  New  York  Magazine  that  we 
know  must  have  been  printed  ?  is  as  unan- 
swerable a  query  as  is,  "  What  becomes  of 
all  the  pins  ?"  Presumably  an  edition  of  at 
least  500  copies  was  issued,  and  yet  there 
is  at  the  present  time  in  all  probability  not 
60 


THE  FIRST  ILLUSTRATED  MAGAZINE 

half  a  dozen  perfect  copies  in  existence. 
The  one  belonging  to  the  New  York  His- 
torical Society  is  perfect,  and  contains  all 
the  plates,  but  it  required  years  of  cat-like 
watchfulness  of  auction  sales  and  patient 
groping  through  booksellers'  catalogues  to 
make  it  so.  I  doubt  if  all  the  descendants 
of  all  the  subscribers  named  in  the  prospec- 
tus could  muster  among  themselves  a 
perfect  copy.  Some  old  gray  garret  rat  in 
one  of  their  ancestral  homes  might  possibly 
pilot  us  to  the  hiding-place  of  a  few  of  its 
sere  and  yellow  leaves. 

Illustrations  in  the  New  York  Magazine 
are  as  delightfully  varied  in  character  as  are 
its  literary  contents.  Pictures  of  birds, 
beasts  and  flowers  are  there  to  please  and 
instruct  the  embryo  naturalist.  Views  in 
foreign  parts  are  presented  in  great  variety. 
By  the  magic  wand  of  the  artist  we  are 
transported  in  open-eyed  wonder  from  the 
great  Pagoda  at  Tanjore  all  the  way  to  Kam- 
schatka,  stopping  long  enough  en  route  to 
catch  glimpses  of  Mt.  Etna  in  a  violent  state 
of  eruption,  and  to  stand  aghast  at  the  sight 
of  a  vessel  with  its  shrieking,  living  freight, 
on  the  point  of  being  engulfed  in  the  Mael- 
strom of  Norway.  By  way  of  fashion 
plates  we  are  furnished  with  pictures  of  the 

61 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

Esquimaux  Indians,  of  Hudson's  Bay,  and 
the  dresses  of  women  in  the  Isle  of  Nio,  in 
the  Grecian  Archipelago. 

The  titles  of  the  illustrations  to  the  stories 
suggest  their  romantic  and  sentimental 
character:  "Her  Sense  had  fled,"  "The 
Cornish  Lovers,"  "Edwin  and  Angelina," 
"  Alcanzar  and  Layda,"  "Despair,  or  the 
History  of  Delia  and  Lorenzo,"  "  The  Death 
of  Adonis,"  and  "The  Babes  in  the 
Woods."  What  a  waste  of  the  engraver's 
time  and  skill  !  Would  that  some  good 
fairy  could  have  stood  at  his  elbow  and  in- 
duced him  to  give  us  instead  of  these  cop- 
per-plate platitudes  more  pictures  of  our 
beloved  city  in  those  olden  times. 

If  we  omit  the  portrait  of  Isaiah,  the 
prophet,  which  we  are  hardly  justified  in 
believing  to  be  a  veritable  likeness,  we  are 
furnished  with  only  two  "counterfeit  pre- 
sentments," those  of  the  Revolutionary  he- 
roes, Generals  Greene  and  Wayne. 

Scattered  through  the  pages  of  the  maga- 
zine are  a  number  of  views  of  places  in  dif- 
ferent sections  of  the  country,  of  which  the 
most  important  from  an  historical  or  topo- 
graphical standpoint  are  the  following: 

"West  Point  from  the  North  as  it  ap- 
peared at  the  close  of  the  War." 

62 


THE  FIRST  ILLUSTRATED  MAGAZINE 


"The  Palisades." 

" Town  of  Kaatskill.    Hudson  River." 

"Inside  View  of  the  New  Theatre,  Phil- 
adelphia." (A  picture  of  great  interest  to 
the  collectors  of  American  dramatic  illustra- 
tions.) 

"A  View  of  the  Town  of  Boston  from 
Breed's  Hill  in  Charlestown,  and  another  of 
the  Bridge  over  Charles  River,  Mass.,"  will 
delight  the  eye  of  the  Bostonian.  When  he 
has  secured  these  prints,  the  engravings  of 
a  similar  character  that  are  to  be  found  in 
the  Massachusetts  Magazine,  Paul  Revere's 
noted  engraving  of  the  Boston  massacre, 
and  the  print  of  Castle  William*  in  the  Har- 
bor of  Boston,  he  will  have  captured  about 
all  the  graphic  memorials  of  this  early  pe- 
riod in  the  history  of  his  native  city  that 
exist. 

The  local  topographical  illustrations  which 
give  the  magazine  its  unique  value  and  im- 
portance to  the  New  York  collector  remain 
to  be  noticed.  They  are,  with  one  excep- 
tion— that  of  Federal  Hall — the  only  existing 
pictures  of  the  places  they  represent,  made 
at  the  period  to  which  the  magazine  be- 
longs, or,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  at  any  pre- 

*  Built  by  Colonel  Romer,  a.  d.  1704,  by  order  of  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Province  of  Massachusetts. 


63 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


vious  epoch  in  the  history  of  our  city. 
These  engravings  number  ten  in  all,  and 
seven  of  them  appear  in  the  first  volume. 
Two  views  of  the  Monument  and  of  the 
Lighthouse  at  Sandy  Hook  are  of  minor  im- 
portance; the  remaining  eight  subjects  are 
as  follows: 

"An  East  View  of  Trinity  Church  "  (the 
rebuilding  of  which  had  just  been  com- 
pleted). 

"A  Perspective  View  of  the  Federal  Edi- 
fice in  the  City  of  New  York"  (then  lately 
reconstructed.  As  before  noted,  a  contem- 
porary picture  of  this  building,  on  a  larger 
scale,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Columbian  Mag- 
azine). 

"A  View  of  Columbia  College  in  the  City 
of  New  York." 

"A  View  of  the  Present  Seat  of  his  Ex- 
cellency the  Vice-President  (John  Adams) 
of  the  United  States."  This  is  properly 
styled  a  "rural  view."  It  was  the  famous 
Richmond  Hill  House,  built  by  Abraham 
Mortier,  Paymaster  General  of  the  Royal 
forces.  It  stood  embowered  in  trees  and 
shrubbery  near  the  banks  of  the  North 
River,  at  the  southeast  corner  of  Varick  and 
Charlton  streets,  on  what  was  then  the  road 
to  Greenwich.  It  was  occupied  in  the 
64 


THE  FIRST  ILLUSTRATED  MAGAZINE 

summer  of  1776  by  General  Washington  as 
a  country  residence,  and  afterward  assumed 
additional  historical  importance  as  the  resi- 
dence of  Aaron  Burr,  at  the  time  of  his  duel 
with  Hamilton.  It  was  sold  by  Burr's  cred- 
itors, after  his  flight,  to  John  Jacob  Astor 
for  $25,000. 

A  View  of  Hell  Gate  is  the  last  illustration 
in  Vol.  I.  With  this  plate  the  artist  appears 
to  have  exhausted  for  the  time  being  this 
valuable  material  for  his  pencil.  No  other 
pictures  of  buildings  in  this  city  appear  un- 
til 1795,  in  Vol.  V.,  when  we  are  given  a 
view  of  Belvedere  House,  a  building  erected 
on  the  banks  of  the  East  River,  near  Cor- 
lear's  Hook,  in  1792,  by  thirty-three  gentle- 
men composing  the  Belvedere  Club. 

The  January  number  of  1795  contains  an 
interesting  engraving  of  the  Government 
House,  so  called  because  it  was  appropri- 
ated to  the  use  of  the  Governors  of  the 
State,  although  originally  intended  as  a 
presidential  residence  when  it  was  thought 
that  New  York  would  be  fixed  upon  as  the 
Capitol  City  of  the  country.  This  building 
was  erected  on  the  spot  where  Fort  George 
formerly  stood,  fronting  Broadway.  The 
view  is  taken  from  the  northwest  corner  of 
the   Battery  near  the  end  of  Greenwich 

65 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

Street,  and  shows  a  part  of  the  city  and 
some  portion  of  the  Battery. 

In  the  same  volume  (October,  1795)  we 
have  the  last  of  these  attractive  pictures  of 
old  New  York.  The  series  closes  with  a 
view  of  St.  Paul's  Church,  which  displays, 
in  addition  to  the  chapel,  the  lower  portion 
of  the  City  Hall  Park,  then  surrounded  by 
wooden  palings.  The  spire  of  this  vener- 
able edifice  still  points  heavenward,  as  it 
did  in  the  days  when  Anderson  drew  its 
graceful  outlines,  but  every  other  architec- 
tural landmark  depicted  in  the  pages  of  the 
New  York  Magazine  has  long  since  van- 
ished as  completely  as  the  baseless  fabric  of 
a  dream. 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  compara- 
tively large  engravings,  such  as  the  memo- 
rial portrait  of  Washington  standing  on  a 
pedestal  in  front  of  Bowling  Green  (also  en- 
graved by  Tiebout),  that  rara  avis  among 
New  York  prints  known  as  the  Rip  Van 
Dam  plate  of  the  Middle  Dutch  Church,  and 
the  "Federal  Edifice"  in  the  Columbian 
Magazine,  the  old  periodical  before  us  sup- 
plies all  the  engravings  of  New  York  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  last  century  that  to  the 
best  of  my  knowledge  exist.  These  pen- 
ciled records  of  the  past  are  few  and  simple, 

66 


THE  FIRST  ILLUSTRATED  MAGAZINE 

but  precious  in  the  sight  of  every  collector 
of  memorials  of  this  goodly  town  of  Man- 
hattan, and  in  their  modest,  unpretentious 
way  they  supply  important  links  in  the 
chain  of  our  topographical  history. 


PART  THE  THIRD 

THE  EARLY  AMERICAN 
ALMANAC 


Au  Agronomical  DIARY,. 

OR,  AN 

ALMANACK 

For  the  Year  of  our  Lord  CHRIST 


Containing, 
The  Sun's  and 
Moon's  rifing 
and  fctting,  '— 
Eclipfes,  — 
TimeofHgh- 
Water,  —  Lu- 
nstions,  —  Af- 
petfs, — Courts 
Spring. Tides, 
— Judgmentof 
the  Weather  — 

Being  BISSEXTILE  or  LEAP  YEAR.. 
Calculated  for  the  Meridian  of  BOSTON,  New  ENOtA^'Dy 
Latitude  42  Degrees  25  Minutes  North. 
The  Year  of  the  Reign  of  King  GEORGE  the  Second 
begins  the  Twenty-fceond  Day  of  June. 

ZyTNATHANIEiTA  MES. 

MARS  like  a  wild  Infernal  Fury,  (talks, 
And  ma-ks  his  Steps  in  Blood  where'er  he  walks  ; 
But  Fe^ce  would  from  her  Native  Heav'n  defcend, 
And  Olive  Branches  to  the  Nations  lend. 


DO  ST  ON  t  in  NEW-ENGLAND  : 
Printed  and  Sold  by  John  Draper,  in  Cornhill  ;  Richard 
Draper  inNewbury-Street  j  Green  &RussELL,and  Edes 
&  Gill,  in  Queen-Street;  and  Thomas  &John  Fleet, 
at  the  Heart  and  Crown  in  Cornhill. 


Feafts  and 
Falls  of  the 
Church  of 
England— 
Quake 
General 
Meetings 
Roads,  — 
Tables  of 
Loin  &In 
terefr,  &c 


Trjcc  Tbret  Shilling:  per  Dozen,  and  Set'tnCtyfers  Cnglc. 


The  world's  a  scene  of  changes  and  to  be 
Constant  in  nature  were  inconstancy, 
For  'twere  to  break  the  laws  herself  has  made, 
Our  substances  themselves  do  fleet  and  fade  ; 
The  most  fixed  Being  still  does  move  and  fly 
Swift  as  the  wings  of  Time  'tis  measured  by." 

Ames's  Almanac,  i  j6o. 


THE 

y  EARLY  AMERICAN  ALMANAC 

i^^^JHE  first  product  of  the  printing- 
press  which  Stephen  Daye 
H3  set  up  under  the  shadow  of 
Harvard  College,  before  the 
walls  of  that  infant  seat  of 
learning  were  fairly  dry,  was 
a  pamphlet,  "The  Freeman's  Oath,"  to 
which  immediately  succeeded  an  Almanac 
for  the  Year  of  our  Lord  1639.  We  surmise 
the  compiler  thereof,  one  Mr.  William 
Pierce,  to  have  been  a  weather-beaten  old 
salt,  who  having  abandoned  his  seafaring 


71 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

life  and  cast  his  moorings  ashore  for  the  re- 
mainder of  his  days,  was  ready  to  turn  his 
nautical  knowledge  to  practical  account. 
He  modestly  disclaims  the  academic  title  of 
Philomath  assumed  by  Almanac  makers  in 
general,  and  subscribes  himself  simply 
"Mariner." 

The  following  year  Daye  covered  his 
name  as  a  typographer  with  imperishable 
glory  by  printing  the  first  book  ever  issued 
from  a  press  in  this  part  of  America,  "The 
Psalms  in  Metre,"  or  the  "New  England 
Version  of  the  Psalms,"  commonly  known 
as  the  "  Bay  Psalm  Book,"  and  to  the  bibli- 
ophile as 

"  One  of  the  books  we  read  about 
But  very  seldom  see." 

One  or  more  Almanacs  were  issued  an- 
nually by  Daye  and  by  his  successor,  Samuel 
Green,  whose  name  is  conspicuous  in  the 
typographical  annals  of  this  country  as  the 
printer  of  "  Eliot's  Indian  Bible,"  that  ex- 
tremely useful  book  which  it  is  said  no  man 
living  can  read.  Following  in  the  wake  of 
these  early  Cambridge  printers,  every  enter- 
prising proprietor  of  a  hand-press  and  font 
of  type  during  the  seventeenth  and  eight- 
eenth centuries  felt  it  his  bounden  duty — or 
72 


THE  EARLY  AMERICAN  ALMANAC 


found  it  to  his  pecuniary  interest — to  pro- 
vide the  community  with  a  yearly  Calendar. 
Suspended  behind  the  farmhouse  kitchen- 
door,  this  silent  monitor  of  the  passing 
hours  repeated  from  year  to  year  its  trust- 
worthy predictions  of  returning  seed-time 
and  harvest  and  its  dubious  prophecies  ot 
rain  and  sunshine,  heat  and  cold,  until,  yel- 
lowed with  smoke,  begrimed  by  constant 
use  and  thumbed  to  bits,  the  last  fragment 
of  a  leaf  fell  fluttering  to  the  ground.  In 
view  of  the  extremely  utilitarian  role  they 
were  called  upon  to  play,  it  is  not  singular 
that  old  Almanacs  not  things  of  rags  and 
tatters  are  difficult  to  find. 

In  those  primitive  days  presumably  few 
books  beside  the  Bible,  the  Psalm-book,  the 
Almanac,  and  now  and  then  a  printed  ser- 
mon of  one  of  the  reverend  fathers  of  the 
Church — Increase  or  Cotton  Mather,  Thomas 
Shephard  or  Samuel  Willard — found  their 
way  over  the  rugged  New  England  hills  to 
remote  and  scattered  Puritan  homes.  In 
the  hard  struggle  for  existence  of  pioneer 
life,  with  its  scant  hours  of  leisure,  they 
doubtless  sufficed  for  the  intellectual  re- 
quirements of  the  inmates.  We  are  in- 
clined to  believe  that  the  Almanac  occupied 
a  higher  place  in  popular  estimation  than  its 


73 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

numerical  strength  (i  to  4)  in  this  primitive 
family  library  would  indicate.  If  the  ques- 
tion of  dispensing  with  either  the  sermon 
or  the  Almanac  came  to  a  vote  in  the  do- 
mestic circle,  we  would  not  rely  with  con- 
fidence upon  the  staying  powers  of  the 
sermon,  especially  if  it  were  one  of  those 
highly  impressive  religious  discourses  which 
the  divines  of  Massachusetts  did  on  occa- 
sion preach  of  a  quiet  Sabbath  day  morning 
to  a  youth  in  his  teens,  in  the  presence  of 
the  congregation  which  during  the  coming 
week  was  to  escort  the  culprit  to  the 
gallows,  and  under  the  blue  sky  of  heaven 
hang  him  for  the  crime  of  sheep-stealing. 

The  feast  of  fat  things  that  the  makers  of 
these  harbingers  of  the  new  year  strove  to 
provide  for  their  readers  is  thus  humorously 
set  forth  by  Dr.  Franklin,  in  his  Almanac 
"Poor  Richard  Improved"  for  1756: 

"  Courteous  Reader: 

"I  suppose  that  my  Almanack  may  be  worth  the 
money  that  thou  hast  paid  for  it,  hadst  thou  no  other 
advantage  from  it  than  to  find  the  day  of  the  Month,  the 
remarkable  T>ays,  the  Changes  of  the  Moon,  the  Sun  and 
Moon's  Rising  and  Setting,  and  to  foreknow  the  Tides 
and  the  Weather ;  these  with  other  Astronomical  Curi- 
osities I  have  yearly  and  constantly  prepared  for  Thy  Use 
and  Entertainment  during  now  near  two  revolutions  ot 
the  Planet  Jupiter.    But  I  hope  that  this  is  not  all  the 


74 


THE  EARLY  AMERICAN  ALMANAC 

Advantage  that  thou  hast  reaped ;  for  with  a  view  to 
the  Improvement  of  thy  Mind  and  thy  Estate,  I  have 
constantly  interspers'd  in  every  little  vacancy,  Moral 
Hints,  Wise  Sayings,  and  Maxims  of  Thrift,  tending  to 
impress  the  benefits  arising  from  Honesty,  Sobriety,  In- 
dustry and  Frugality,  which,  if  thou  hast  duly  observed, 
it  is  highly  probable  that  thou  art  Wiser  and  Richer 
many  fold  more  than  the  Pence  my  Labours  have  cost 
thee.  Howbeit,  I  shall  not  therefore  raise  my  Price  be- 
cause thou  art  better  able  to  pay  :  but  being  thankful  for 
past  Favours,  I  shall  endeavour  to  make  my  little  Book 
more  Worthy  thy  regard  by  adding  to  those  Recipes 
which  were  intended  for  the  Cure  of  the  Mind,  some 
valuable  ones  regarding  the  Health  of  the  Body.  They 
are  recommended  by  the  Skillful  and  by  successful  Prac- 
tice. I  wish  a  blessing  may  attend  the  use  of  them,  and 
to  thee  all  Happiness,  being 

Thy  obliged  Friend, 

u  R.  Saunders." 

The  curious  hodge-podge  of  scraps  of 
useful  information,  scintillations  of  native 
wit,  and  "proverbial  sentences  which  in- 
culcate industry  and  frugality,"  as  above 
set  forth,  is  embodied  in  twenty  to  thirty 
small  octavo  or  duodecimo  pages,  which 
are  all  that  most  of  these  miniature  com- 
pendiums  of  knowledge  contain. 

The  most  important  of  these  early  Al- 
manacs, from  a  literary  point  of  view,  are 
the  "Poor  Richards,"  begun  in  1732  by 
Benjamin  Franklin,  and  continued  by  him 
and  D.  Hall  for  over  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
75 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

They  contain  the  famous  bon  mots,  reflec- 
tions and  maxims  of  the  great  Quaker  Phi- 
losopher, which  gained  wide  circulation  at 
the  time  through  the  columns  of  the  colo- 
nial press  and  later  were  gathered  together 
in  the  shape  of  a  discourse,  entitled  "  Father 
Abraham's  Advice  to  his  Neighbors,"  and 
published  as  broadsides  or  in  chap-book 
form  under  the  title  of  "Poor  Richard's 
Way  to  Wealth. "  This  ' '  discourse  "  passed 
through  numerous  editions,  and  was  trans- 
lated into  a  score  of  tongues,  including 
modern  Greek  and  Chinese. 

Dr.  Franklin  informs  us  in  his  "Mem- 
oirs "  that  he  endeavored  to  make  his  Al- 
manac both  entertaining  and  useful,  and  it 
accordingly  came  to  be  in  such  demand  that 
he  reaped  considerable  profit  from  it,  vend- 
ing annually  nearly  10,000  copies. 

Commanding  higher  prices  in  the  market 
for  rare  old  books  than  "  Poor  Richard," 
but  solely  on  account  of  the  typographical 
importance  and  greater  scarcity  of  the  im- 
print, are  the  Almanacs  made  by  Daniel 
and  Titus  Leeds,  the  title-pages  of  which 
bear  the  heraldic  embellishment  of  their 
family  arms.  Their  Almanacs  are  better 
known  by  the  name  of  the  publisher  than 
by  that  of  the  compilers.  They  were  printed, 
76 


THE  EARLY  AMERICAN  ALMANAC 


the  first  for  the  year  1686,  by  William  Brad- 
ford, near  Philadelphia,  and  from  the  year 
1694  until  1742  in  New  York  by  the  same 
printer.    They  are  all  of  the  utmost  rarity. 

The  commingling  in  the  column  of  the 
Calendar  of  Bradford's  Almanacs  of  weather 
prophesies,  wise  saws,  doggered  verse, 
and  epigrammatical  paragraphs  on  every 
variety  of  subject,  forms  an  amusing  med- 
ley, and  reminds  one  of  the  by-play  or 
asides  of  the  stage.  We  take  as  a  sample 
page  the  Calendar  for  January,  1738 — "A 
turbid  air  and  rough  weather."  ''Rain  or 
snow."  "Fools  play  with  edge  tools." 
"Snow."  "This  world  is  bad  which 
makes  some  mad."  "  If  snow  comes  now 
don't  be  angry."  "Cloudy."  "  Snow,  or 
I'm  mistaken."  Interlarded  between  these 
phrases  are  the  Signs  of  the  Zodiac,  the  Sun 
and  Moon's  Risings  and  Settings,  Eclipses, 
Lunations,  Time  of  High  Water,  Feasts  and 
Fasts  of  the  Church,  and  the  Dates  of 
Quaker  meetings.  Our  friend  Philomath 
adopted  a  very  clever  ruse  with  his  prog- 
nostications. He  strung  them  down  the 
column  of  his  Almanac  word  by  word  and 
left  huge  gaps  between,  so  that  with  one 
oracular  sentence  he  contrived  to  cover  a 
full  third  of  a  month.    It  would  be  hard 


77 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


lines  indeed  if  he  failed  to  hit  the  nail  par- 
tially on  the  head  one  day  out  of  the  ten  or 
a  dozen  he  so  ingeniously  bracketed  to- 
gether. 

Among  the  most  interesting  items  in  the 
column  of  the  Calendar  of  Bradford's  Alma- 
nac is  one  that  fixes  the  date  of  the  birth  of 
New  York's  first  printer  on  May  20th,  1663, 
and  refutes  the  date  on  his  tombstone  of 
1660. 

Conspicuous  among  the  disseminators  of 
this  evanescent  form  of  literature  during  the 
last  century  were  the  Ames,  father  and  son, 
of  Dedham,  Mass.,  who  issued  Almanacs 
consecutively  for  fifty  years  at  the  price  of 
' '  three  shillings  per  dozen  and  seven  coppers 
single."  Isaiah  Thomas,  of  Worcester,  Isaac 
Collins,  of  Trenton,  and  James  Franklin,  of 
Newport,  R.  I.,  were  Almanac  makers. 
Peter  Stewart,  of  Philadelphia,  published  an 
Almanac  to  which  he  gave,  apparently  in 
imitation  of  Dr.  Franklin,  the  patriarchal 
title  of  "  Father  Abraham  " ;  Hugh  Gaine,  of 
New  York,  was  the  printer  of  the  well- 
known  and  widely  circulated  "  Hutchin's 
Improved."  T.  and  J.  Fleet,  of  Boston, 
issued  for  many  years  a  "  Pocket  Almanac," 
which  differs  from  most  others  of  the 
period  in  that  it  is  supplemented  by  a 
78 


THE  EARLY  AMERICAN  ALMANAC 


11  Register  of  the  Commonwealth,"  extend- 
ing to  sixty  or  seventy  pages,  while  the 
Almanac  contains  less  than  a  dozen  leaves. 
This  elongated  tail  of  a  Register  wags  the 
little  dog  of  an  Ephemeris  to  which  it  is 
appended  most  unmercifully. 

All  old  Almanacs  bear  a  close  family 
resemblance,  which  extends  to  the  inferior 
quality  of  the  paper  upon  which  they  are 
printed.  After  the  title  comes  an  address 
to  the  "Kind"  or  "Courteous  Reader." 
Then  appears  the  conventional,  sprawl- 
ing, disembowelled  figure  representing  the 
"Anatomy  of  Man's  Body  as  Governed  by 
the  Twelve  Constellations,"  followed  by  an 
Ephemeris  of  the  Planets'  places  for  certain 
days  in  the  month,  and  then  the  monthly 
column  of  the  Calendar  begins  with  spaces 
left  at  the  top  and  sometimes  at  the  sides, 
devoted  to  reading  matter.  Frequently 
only  alternate  pages  are  occupied  by  the 
Calendar,  and  the  intervening  ones  are  filled 
with  the  overflow  of  wit  and  wisdom  from 
the  spaces,  or  "  vacancies,"  as  Franklin  calls 
them,  in  the  Calendar  itself.  The  pamphlet 
closes  with  two  or  three  pages  containing 
sundry  items  of  local  interest,  tables  of  dis- 
tances, rates  of  duties,  and  the  like.  In  all 
Almanacs  up  to  the  year  1752,  the  old  style 


79 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 


of  reckoning  was  observed,  the  year  be- 
ginning on  Lady's  Day,  March  25th. 

For  the  convenience  of  their  patrons,  the 
editors  of  these  astronomical  diaries  pro- 
vided them  with  blank  memorandum  leaves, 
many  of  which,  covered  with  the  common- 
place entries  of  everyday  life,  still  remain 
intact  and  in  place.  Those  who  parted 
with  these  little  books  often  neglected, 
either  through  ignorance  or  indifference,  to 
remove  pages  never  intended  for  other  eyes 
than  those  of  the  original  owners.  This  is 
not  a  matter  of  surprise  either  to  the  biblio- 
phile or  the  collector  of  antiquities.  Many 
a  treasure  which  comes  to  their  net  uncov- 
ers a  dead,  and  to  all  appearances,  discarded 
past.  In  the  backs  of  miniatures  still  lie 
soft  coils  of  braided  hair,  and  the  cover  of 
an  old  book,  with  its  inscriptions  and  inter- 
locked emblems  and  ciphers,  is  often  a  poem 
in  leather  and  gold,  replete  with  romantic 
interest  and  full  of  sad  suggestions. 

The  weather  predictions  of  Philomath,  it 
seems,  were  more  to  be  relied  upon  if  taken 
by  contraries  than  literally,  if  the  following 
story  has  any  foundation  in  fact,  although, 
to  be  as  honest  as  the  story-teller  in  the 
"  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow,"  I  don't  believe 
one  half  of  it  myself. 

80 


THE  EARLY  AMERICAN  ALMANAC 


A  noted  Almanac  maker,  wending  his 
way  through  the  country,  halted  at  a 
farmhouse,  and  after  watering  his  horse 
gathered  up  the  reins  to  proceed  on  his 
journey,  when  he  was  informed  by  the 
attendant  that  if  he  went  on  he  would 
certainly  get  wet.  Glancing  at  the  sky, 
in  which  he  was  unable  to  discern  a  cloud 
the  size  of  a  man's  hand,  he  declared  that 
he  could  see  no  indication  of  an  approach- 
ing storm,  and  would  take  his  chances.  In 
about  an  hour  the  clouds  gathered  and  the 
rain  fell.  Impressed  with  this  remarkable 
fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  he  had  rejected, 
our  traveler  retraced  his  steps  to  the  farm- 
house, and  offered  the  wiseacre  a  half  dollar 
for  the  secret  of  his  ability  to  so  correctly 
forecast  the  weather.  "  Nothing  easier," 
said  he.  "  We  have  that  old  fool's  (here  he 
mentioned  the  name  of  the  man  in  the 
wagon)  Almanac  in  the  house.  For  to- 
day it  foretold  fine  weather  and  very  dry. 
So  I  knew  it  would  surely  rain  before 
night." 

The  line  upon  line  and  precept  upon 
precept  of  these  little  waifs  of  books  is 
quaint,  old-fashioned  literature,  but  quite 
as  profitable  reading  now  as  it  was  a  cen- 
tury ago.    We  have  a  sample  of  its  quality 

81 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

in  the  following  extracts  from  "  Poor  Rich- 
ard "  and  "  Hutchin's  Improved  " : 

"  I  never  saw  an  oft-removed  tree, 
Nor  yet  an  oft-removed  family, 
That  throve  so  well  as  those  that  settled  be." 

"  For  age  and  want  save  what  you  may, 
No  morning  sun  lasts  a  whole  day." 

' 1  Avoid  going  to  law,  for  the  quarreling  dog  hath  a 
tattered  skin.  It  is  better  to  suffer  loss  than  to  run  to 
courts,  for  the  play  is  not  worth  the  candle." 

' '  It  is  better  to  go  to  bed  supperless  than  to  rise  in 
debt." 

"  Idleness  is  the  key  of  beggary." 

"  For  the  want  of  a  nail  the  shoe  is  lost,  for  the  want 
of  a  shoe  the  horse  is  lost,  for  the  want  of  a  horse  the 
rider  is  lost." 

"  Prayer  and  provender  hinder  no  journey." 

"  He  who  looks  not  before,  finds  himself  behind." 

u  A  penny  saved  is  two  pence  clear, 
A  pin  a  day's  a  groat  a  year." 

"  Cunning  differs  from  wisdom  as  twilight  from  open 
day." 

"It  is  remarkable  that  death  increases  our  veneration 
for  the  good,  and  extenuates  our  hatred  of  the  bad." 

"  Too  much  of  one  thing  is  good  for  nothing,  so  we 
will  finish  this  subject." 

We  will  accept  this  timely  suggestion 
from  John  Nathan  Hutchins — Philom. — and 
conclude  this  article  with  an  ' 'extempore 
sermon,"  which  was  published  by  the 

82 


THE  EARLY  AMERICAN  ALMANAC 

same  wise  counsellor  and  guide  of  his  fel- 
low-men for  the  edification  of  the  readers  of 
his  Almanac  for  the  year  of  Grace  1793.  If 
not  a  perfect  model  of  pulpit  oratory,  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  it  possesses  the  twin 
merits  of  succinctness  and  brevity: 

AN  Extempore  SERMON, 
Preached  at  the  request  of  two  Scholars — by  a 
LOVER  OF  ALE, 
Out  of  a  Hollow  Tree. 

Beloved  : 

Let  me  crave  your  attention  ;  for  I  am  a  little  man, 
come  at  a  short  warning,  to  a  thin  congregation — in  an 
unworthy  pulpit. 

And  now,  beloved,  my  text  is  malt ;  which  I  cannot 
divide  into  sentences,  because  it  has  none  ;  nor  into 
words,  it  being  but  one  ;  nor  into  syllables,  because  it  is 
but  a  monosyllable  ;  therefore,  I  must  divide  it  into  let- 
ters, MALT.  M,  my  beloved,  is  moral  ;  A  is  allegor- 
ical ;  L  is  literal ;  and  T  theological. 

The  moral  is  set  forward  to  teach  drunkards  their 
duty  ;  wherefore  my  first  use  shall  be  exhortation  :  M, 
my  masters  ;  A,  all  of  you  ;  L,  leave  off ;  T,  tippling. 
The  allegorical  is  when  one  thing  is  spoken  of,  and 
another  is  meant ;  now  the  thing  spoken  of  is  bare  malt  : 
M,  my  masters  ;  A,  all  of  you  ;  L,  listen  ;  T,  to  my 
text.  But  the  thing  meant  is  strong  beer  ;  which  you 
rustics  make  :  M,  meat ;  A,  apparel  ;  L,  liberty,  and  T, 
treasure.  The  literal  is  according  to  the  letters :  M, 
much  ;  A,  ale  ;  L,  little  ;  T,  thrift.  The  theological  is 
according  to  the  effects  it  works — first,  in  this  world  ; 

83 


THE  OLD  BOOKSELLERS  OF  NEW  YORK 

secondly,  in  the  world  to  come.  Its  effects  in  this  world 
are  :  In  some,  M,  murder ;  in  others,  A,  adultery  ;  in 
some,  L,  looseness  of  life  ;  in  others,  T,  treason.  Its 
effects  in  the  world  to  come  are  :  M,  misery;  A,  anguish  : 
L,  languishing,  and  T,  torment.    Now  to  conclude  : 

Say  well  and  do  well,  both  end  with  a  letter, 
Say  well  is  good,  but  do  well  is  better. 


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